Ballot Access

ANNAPOLIS -- Ross Perot, the undeclared candidate for president, will be here tomorrow for the ceremonial presentation of more than 140,000 signatures obtained from Marylanders who want him on the ballot this November.The Perot petitions were delivered to county election boards around the state yesterday. Each signature must be verified as belonging to a registered voter -- and the voter rolls are kept by local boards.Nevertheless, the candidate and a flotilla of 24 boats will cruise into the Annapolis City Dock about noon carrying facsimiles of the petitions.

The brother-sister political team of Del. Clarence M. Mitchell IV and Lisa Mitchell opened their campaign office in downtown Baltimore last night. There was only one problem: Lisa Mitchell may not be on the ballot in her race for state delegate.Clarence Mitchell, 36, a Democrat from the 44th District, is seeking to move from the House of Delegates to the state Senate seat vacated in January by expelled state Sen. Larry Young.Lisa Mitchell, 35, is one of several candidates vying for three House of Delegates seats from the same district.

Some community leaders in Baltimore County are fighting a referendum drive they say is backed by developers who are trying to "hijack" the county's zoning process because they didn't get their way. A coalition calling itself "Don't Sign It!" urged county residents Monday not to sign the petitions, which would put land-use decisions in Council Chairwoman Vicki Almond's and Councilwoman Cathy Bevins' districts on the 2014 ballot. The petition drive has ties to Howard Brown of David S. Brown Enterprises and to the Cordish Cos., two prominent development firms.

Maryland's highest court struck down an election rule yesterday that has hindered efforts by the Green Party and other alternative political parties to place their candidates on ballots where they could compete with Democrats and Republicans. The Court of Appeals overturned the state's two-step requirement that minor parties first obtain 10,000 voter signatures for recognition as a party and then submit a second nominating petition for each candidate with the signatures of 1 percent of the electorate.

Hundreds of Green Party members arrived Thursday in Baltimore to pick a candidate for president, even as the party has been forced to scramble for a spot on Maryland's ballot this fall. The national convention, which is taking place at the University of Baltimore before moving to a downtown hotel, doesn't have the glitz Democrats and Republicans will bring when they nominate Barack Obama and Mitt Romney later this year. But getting away from the money pervasive in national politics, Green Party leaders said, is at least partly the point.

In no other Western democracy do third-party or independent candidates confront more obstacles and exclusions from contributing to a competitive democratic process than in the United States. These include both legal obstacles and an abject lack of media coverage. Legal impediments include ballot access barriers, such as requiring huge numbers of verified signatures subject to arbitrary challenges by state officials, as well as a winner-take-all system without the benefit of instant runoff voting or proportional representation.

WASHINGTON -- While courageous American troops and Iraqi civilians risk life and limb for the right to vote in war-torn Iraq, President Bush has made the 43-member Congressional Black Caucus, currently all Democrats, more than a little nervous about how much he values voting rights back home. According to witnesses at a private meeting in the White House Cabinet Room last week, the president was characteristically cordial yet remarkably noncommittal in responding to a wide range of questions, mostly about racial disparities concerning such issues as employment, education, health care and legal rights.

Fred Griisser has some advice for Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot as Mr. Perot tries to get his name on Maryland's presidential election ballot this year:Bring your checkbook.Mr. Perot wants a volunteer campaign. But money is the key to collecting the thousands of valid signatures required of candidates and causes, according to Mr. Griisser, who had to collect more than 33,000 of them in 1988 when he tried to have a handgun law repealed.Mr. Perot has said he is willing, even eager, to spend $50 million or so of his fortune to run as an independent against President Bush.

Election Day is over, but the legal battle over Lenora B. Fulani's presidential campaign in Maryland drags on in Baltimore Circuit Court.Two Baltimore political activists are on trial for the second time, charged with stealing the almost 12,000 signatures gathered to put Ms. Fulani, the New Alliance Party candidate for president, on the state ballot.One of the defendants, Morning Sunday, was the chairman for the New Alliance Party in Maryland.In March, after a falling-out with the national organization, she refused to turn the petitions over to the secretary of state's office.

BECAUSE THE OFFICE of president is the most important, powerful and influential in the world, those seeking it must demonstrate their understanding of its significance and its global preeminence, not just their popularity. Third-party candidates are not seeking to become the next president. As they have said repeatedly, "they are seeking to give voice to the forgotten Americans" and to "return the government to the people." Third-party candidates can best make their points and accomplish the foregoing either in the House or Senate.