Thread: Texas' Primary Election of March 7, 2006

50 CAL is right. You can't do both. You have to support either one candidate or another and you can't vote in the primaries and do that. I am voting for third party candidates--except for the Libertarian congressman who, unfortunately is the only challenger to the Democrat in my district with the forked tongue--so I can't sign their petitions and vote in the primaries.

Hopefully, people understand that election laws vary from state to state.

From the Office of the Texas Secretary of State's "Independent Candidates":

You may have your name placed on the general election ballot as an independent candidate if you are not affiliated with a political party. If you vote in a party’s primary elections or participate in a party’s conventions, you thereby affiliate with the party. File a Declaration of Intent to Run as an Independent Candidate between December 3, 2005 and January 2, 2006, with the county judge (county offices) or the Secretary of State (district and state offices). After the primary elections, collect signatures from registered voters, who support your application for a place on the general election ballot. The signers must be registered voters who have not participated in the general primary election or the runoff primary election of a party that has nominated, at either election, a candidate for the office you seek. File the application by May 11, 2006. Contact the Secretary of State’s office concerning the number of signatures required.

Office of the Texas Secretary of State's "Independent Candidates."
http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/ca ... /ind.shtml

OK-- how do you dissect this? Can I sign a petition for say, Arthur Loux for TX state senate and still go vote in a primary to get Sylvestre Reyes out of his house seat? Are Arthur Loux and Sylvestre Reyes the only two individuals obliged NOT to vote in a primary or am I, a regular voter, also obliged not to? See where the problem comes from?

Ok here we go. If you vote in the primary or the runoff for the primary you can not sign any petitions for any third party or Independent. The signing of petitions are ok to start after the primary starting on march 8th. You just run the risk ifyou get a signature after march 8th that the person who signed may vote in the runoff (if there is one).

JuniusJnr: long as the Libertarian that you want to vote for is unopposed in the libertarian pary the will automatically make on the general election ballot. The primaries are only for internal to parties races. The Libertarian, Democrats and Republicans are the major parties. They get a place on the ballot if there is someone in their party seeking that office.

YIKES! I don't want to vote for ANY Libertarian. They are FOR open borders. It says that right on their web page.

And there brings up another point. People need to pay careful attention to who they are voting for. If there is no platform at all (such as seems to be the guy -- Jorge Whoever-- who wants to oppose Reyes in the primaries) do you want to vote for the guy? If there is a platform that states the exact opposite of what you believe that is a PARTY platform-- such as Libertarians and open borders-- do you want to vote for that guy.

This is going to get tricky and we have got to pay careful attention. Know who you are voting for and why. But for goodness sakes, don't waste your vote on a primary if you can be better served by saving your signature for an independent candidate.

It isn't a-one office thing. A primary vote negates you from being able to sign the petition for ANY independent candidate from dog catcher to President. So be careful.

Each state has different election laws, too. So go to your state election board's web page and study before you do anything you might have cause to regret. We can't afford to mess up this time or we aren't going to have a country left to worry about ten years from now.