Cross Endorsement versus Lawsuit

As you may or may not have heard, the Democrat and Republican parties cross-endorsed 12 of their candidates for the upcoming election. No big deal you say. Take a look at the election results over the last two elections. (http://www.asentinelparty.com/toppage1.htm ) Do you find it interesting that the cross-endorsed candidate had their name on the ballot twice and they were able to total their votes on both lines and win the election. Does this seem like a fair election in any sense of the word. It is an effective ploy that the two parties have grown used to in their effort to guarantee their election and to force out the local political party called the A Sentinel Party.

It is also an effective way to destroy any sense of choice in an election. The elected officials will not need to "fear" the voter because the voter will be powerless. It is a good thing that every two years, elected officials need to sit back and reflect on what they have or have not accomplished. A competitive election also forces officials to address what they believe the issues are in the future that will need to be addressed. When asked about the reason for cross-endorsements, the democrat and republican leadership exclaim "we can't find enough people to run". I am confused how putting the same name on two lines gives you more people. If the object was to find people to run, wouldn't it be better that three groups of active citizens were looking to find people to help in the running of the town than just one? As it is, the three parties were able to find 30 people. The A Sentinel Party is running 8 good people with 5 of them being new to elected office. Some of them are facing democrat/republican cross-endorsement and face a virtually impossible task of winning. To their credit, they are putting their name in the ring anyway.

All of this brings me to the point of this posting. Robert Lisiewski, David Charette and I felt that the sanctity of a fair and open election was being abused and destroyed by the wholesale cross-endorsement of the other two major parties. The parties leadership are helping to choose each other's candidates in order to secure elections for their chosen few. To the credit of some candidates, they refused to be a part of the cross-endorsement and chose to run on one line. Bob, Dave and I faced a choice on whether to continue on and go along in this charade of an election or take a stand. We have constantly asked for only one thing - each candidate should run on only one line. This way the voters decide who gets elected in a fair way. Apparently this was too much to ask.

We hired an attorney and filed a lawsuit in Federal Court due to the ongoing collusion and conspiracy between the leadership of the parties in the election process. The complaint is relatively simple and stills asks that the candidates run on one line. This process guarantees no one an election but it does guarantee that the voters will have a fair election.