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Do you have 25 friends and 75 dollars? If so, you too could one day be a candidate for statewide or federal offices like governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. senator and U.S. representative.

Hawaii’s election laws set a low bar for potential candidates, making it easier to get on the ballot for a primary election in Hawaii than almost anywhere else in the country.

But just because candidates’ names are on the ballot doesn’t mean they’ll all get the same amount of votes, equal coverage by the media, or even equitable support from their political parties. And that’s a fact that rankles some candidates.

Republican , an 81-year-old former state representative, rails against how the media and his own party have marginalized his candidacy for governor. Nonpartisan Big Island state House hopeful Solomon Singer has filed a complaint with the elections office over the requirement that he win at least 10 percent of the total primary votes cast in his district to go on to the general election.

In some states, they might not have made the ballot at all. Financial and signature hurdles are used across the country to restrict access to the ballot.

Richard Winger, who authors the California-based and has for decades advocated for easy and equal ballot access, praised Hawaii’s rules for primary elections.

“Among the states that do require signatures to get on the ballot, you won’t find anything easier than Hawaii,” he told Civil Beat Tuesday. He said many states don’t require any signatures and instead charge higher fees.

“You’ll have a lot of frivolous candidates who might be willing to pay a lot of money to get on a ballot, but even the smallest amount of signatures stops them,” Winger said. “Maybe they’re embarrassed to go out and ask.”

2010 Primary Ballot Access for Statewide Candidates

State	Petition Requirement1 or Fee	Code Reference	Signatures
AL	fee set by party, not to exceed 2% sal	17-16-15	0
AK	$100	15.25.050	0
AZ	petition of .5% of party’s reg.	16-322.A.1	2
AR	filing fee set by party	7-7-301(a)	0
CA	65 member sigs + 2% of salary	8103 and 8062	65
CO	automatic if support at party meeting	1-4-601	0
CT	automatic if support at party meeting	9-382 thru 9-450	0
DE	filing fee set by party	Title 15, §3103	0
FL	filing fee of 6% of annual salary	99.061	0
GA	filing fee of 3% of annual salary	21-2-131(a)(2)	0
HI	25 signatures + $75	§12-5, 12-6	25
IA	petition of .5% 1998 pty vote for gov	Title 4, §43.20	approx. 2,500
ID	1,000 signatures + $250	34-604	1,000
IL	5,000 signatures	10 ILCS 5/7-10	5,000
IN	5,000 signatures	3-8-2-8	5,000
KS	filing fee of 1% of annual salary	25-206	0
KY	$500	Title 10, §118.255	0
LA	$600	Title 18, §464	0
MA	10,000 sigs. of members or indps.	Chap. 53, §44	10,000
MD	$290	Art. 33, §5-401	0
ME	2,000 signatures of party members	Title 21-A, §335	2,000
MI	petition of 1% of pty sec of st vote	168.93	approx. 17,000
MN	$400	204B.11	0
MO	$100	115.357	0
MS	$300	23-15-297	0
MT	filing fee of 1% of annual salary	13-10-202	0
NC	filing fee of 1% of annual salary	163-107	0
ND	automatic if support at party meeting	16.1-11-06	0
NE	filing fee of 1% of annual salary	32-608	0
NH	$100	Title 4, §655:19(c)	0
NJ	1,000 signatures	19:23-8	1,000
NM	pet. of 3% of pty gub primary total	1-8-33	Dem: 5,122
NV	$500	293.193	0
NY	automatic if support at party meeting	Chap. 17, §6-104	0
OH	1,000 signatures + $100	3513.05, 3513.10	1,000
OK	$1,000	Title 26, §5-112	0
OR	$150	Title 23, §249.056	0
PA	2,000 member signatures + $200	Title 25, §2872.1	2,000
RI	1,000 signatures	17-14-7	1,000
SC	filing fee set by party	party rules	0
SD	1% party Nov 1998 gub vote	12-6-4	Rep: 1,667
TN	25 signatures	2-5-101(b)	25
TX	$4,000	Elec. code 172.024	0
UT	fee of 1/8th of 1% of term salary	20A-9-201	0
VA	10,000 sigs. + fee of 2% of salary	24.2-521, 24.2-523	10,000
VT	500 signatures	Title 17, §2355	500
WA	filing fee of 1% of annual salary	29.18.050	0
WI	2,000 signatures	Title 2, §8.10, 8.15	2,000
WV	filing fee of 1% of annual salary	3-5-8	0
WY	$200	22-5-208	0
DC	1,000 signatures	1-1306(b)(2)	1,000

Source: Richard Winger of .

The requirements for eligibility are laid out in Chapter 16 of Hawaii’s [pdf] and are prescribed by of the Hawaii Revised Statutes. Candidates for the Hawaii Senate and House of Representatives, the county councils and county mayors need only 15 signatures, not 25, to be eligible. The fee is either $25 or $50, depending on the position.

The Governor’s Race

Voters have been fed a steady diet of and during the fight for the Democratic nomination for governor, most recently at their one-on-one debate Monday. But there are three other Democrats running for the same nomination who have generated far less heat: Arturo Reyes, Miles Shiratori and Van Tanabe.

In all, there are 11 candidates for the state’s top job. is commonly referred to as the Republican in the race and was recently touted by Hawaii GOP Chair Jonah Kaauwai as the first “righteous” candidate for the post in a century. But the party has yet to actually nominate Aiona, as he faces Carroll, an attorney, in the Sept. 18 primary. Carroll bristles at his party’s one-note support for his opponent and will distribute “” silhouette-style fliers at a rally Sunday at Aloha Tower.

Aiona may have the inside track on his party’s nomination, but there’s currently only one gubernatorial candidate that can guarantee he’ll be on the ballot in November: Daniel H. Cunningham.

The Hilo-based would-be-governor, who attended last week’s Big Island debate and said the country is headed toward a Fourth Reich, is a member of the .

Source:

Minor Party and Nonpartisan Candidates

After the primary, Cunningham will add Free Energy lieutenant governor candidate Deborah “Jo B” Spence to his ticket. The two are the only Free Energy Party candidates on the primary ballot in any race, according to the ‘ official [pdf].

The Free Energy Party is one of three ballot-qualified minor parties. The others are the Green Party and the Libertarian Party, and though the parties are not running candidates for governor or lieutenant governor, Jim Brewer (Green) and Lloyd Jeffrey Mallan (Libertarian) are challenging for his Senate seat, while Pat Brock (Libertarian) is taking on in Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District.

Libertarian Fred Fogel, running for the Volcano seat (District 5) in the state House is the only other minor party candidate in the state.

That doesn’t mean everybody else is either a Democrat or a Republican, though the vast majority are. Eight candidates are running with an (N) next to their name, meaning they are nonpartisan or independent. They also could be a member of another minor party — for example, California’s , the or the — that is not ballot-qualified in Hawaii.

Of those eight non-affiliated candidates, three — Tony Clapes, Paul Manner and Tom Pollard — are running for governor. Jeff Jarrett is running for Senate; Andrew Vsevolod Von Sonn for Congressional District 2; Leonard Leo Kama for lieutenant governor; Solomon Singer for state House District 4; and Johnathan Able for state House District 5.

Those candidates face a special hurdle: To get their names on the ballot for the general election, they must secure 10 percent of the total votes cast in all party primaries for their race or secure as many votes as one of the nominated party candidates, according to .

That hurdle is unique to Hawaii, according to Winger, the California-based ballot access advocate.

“The trouble with Hawaii is that they discriminate against independent candidates horribly,” he said. “Hawaii is the only state that has the law like that. What good is it? If it’s a good idea to have a minimum vote test in the primary, you’d think they would apply it evenhandedly to all candidates, not just independents.”

Hawaii’s rules concerning independent candidates recently made local headlines when Singer, the nonpartisan candidate for House District 4 on the Big Island, sent a complaint to the state’s election office. The Hawaii Tribune-Herald last week.

Winger said the provision has twice been upheld as constitutional by courts, once after a 1978 race in Maui and again in the late 1980s on Kauai. Frequent independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader sued Hawaii in 2004 after he was required to obtain 4,000 signatures to get on the ballot here — about six times the amount he would have needed to qualify an entire new party, Winger said. And Hawaii is one of just five states to ban write-in votes, he said.

Winger has written on the subject for years. Among his writings are “” and “.”

Hawaii is hardly in danger of having overcrowded ballots, he said. In fact, in recent years the issue has been too many uncontested races.

“The right to vote includes the right of choice of whom to vote. Even Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union had elections, it’s just that only one party was available,” Winger said. “It’s not a free election unless people can freely run for office and unless voters have a choice among candidates.”

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DISCUSSION Does Hawaii’s low bar give voters more options at the ballot box, or does it crowd the race with frivolous candidates? Join the conversation and learn more about .