Too much of a good thing can easily be a bad thing.
Too much water leads to water intoxication.
Too much working out leads to rhabdomyolysis.
Too many antibiotics lead to drug-resistant superbugs.
And finally, too high of a signature requirement keeps good candidates off ballots.
Signature requirements to make a ballot make sense. Go search social media for “independent candidates” and you’ll see a wide array of highly unqualified individuals running for public office.
If we let all these candidates make the ballot it’d be mayhem, somewhat laughable, but pure, unadulterated mayhem. And, although Britain’s satirical candidate “Lord Buckethead” from the fictitious party, the Gremloids, is funny, we’ve already learned that too much of a good thing is bad.
However, signature requirements, like the other things mentioned above, can go too far.
Take the case of Arizona, where an independent has to collect a whopping 36,697 signatures in order to appear on the ballot in the gubernatorial race. Meanwhile, Republicans candidates have to collect 6,223 signatures and Democrats have to collect 5,801.
Noah Dyer, a candidate with rational views, ideas worthy of consideration, and a very real support base (no fictitious parties or Russian bots here), should be on the ballot in Arizona. Yet after collecting nearly 25,000 signatures, he’s still at risk of being left off.
That is 3 times more signatures than any of his major-party competitors, more signatures than required to start a brand new political party in Arizona, and significantly more signatures than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were required to get to be on the presidential ballot in every state in 2016.
This isn’t even about Noah Dyer. This is about principle. The people of Arizona should be given the chance to pick the best among all worthy candidates, not the best from a filtered list, especially when that list is filtered by those with an immense conflict of interest.
If you’re an Arizonan and believe you have the intellectual capacity to choose for yourself, then there are a few ways you can help. One, fight for your state to change its ballot access laws. Two, sign the petition allowing Noah Dyer to be on the ballot.
This doesn’t mean you have to vote for him, it just means you believe Arizona should follow the American way and be ruled by the voice of the People, not ruled by the two-party system.
Editor's Note : This article originally published on Free Wheel Media and has been modified slightly for publication on IVN.