Below please find the Lindsay/Osorio campaign’s initial announcement about ballot access, released prior to obtaining ballot status in Washington, Wisconsin and Utah. Additional updates and announcements about new states are coming soon.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation is proud to announce that our 2012 campaign will be on the ballot in Arkansas, Colorado, Vermont and New Jersey!
These are just the first four of many states throughout the country in which the PSL’s campaign is seeking ballot access. We will bring the campaign’s socialist message to poor and working people in every region of the country.
With just this initial success, millions of workers will have the option of voting for the PSL’s campaign. Instead of voting for one of the two major parties beholden to the interests of the bankers and CEOs, people in these four states can cast a vote for revolution!
These states in particular are badly in need of a socialist alternative. Arkansas suffers under significantly greater poverty – 18 percent according to the government’s outrageously low threshold – than the rest of the country, and the state legislature is considering harsh budget cuts. Colorado was among the first states to be hit hard by the capitalist economic crisis, leading the country in foreclosures in 2006.
Last year, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin’s budget included 83 million dollars in cuts, affecting programs that provide assistance for mental and children’s health care. In New Jersey, workers face an unemployment rate that is even higher than the outrageous national average.
Now the workers of Arkansas, New Jersey, Vermont and Colorado can vote against the twin parties responsible for these attacks. This tremendous accomplishment was made possible by the hard work of PSL volunteers. The Lindsay/Osorio PSL presidential campaign is truly a grassroots movement with no paid campaign workers.
Please make an urgently needed donation to help us get on the ballot in states across the country!
In Arkansas, a team of volunteers secured our place on the ballot through a tireless petitioning effort. The minimum requirement in the state is 1,000 valid signatures, but the PSL campaign managed to turn in over 2,000. Students and members of working-class communities were eager to help a people’s campaign challenge the twin parties of the rich.
Our team was able to meet their goal in just five days, focusing on college campuses, shopping centers and public events in downtown Little Rock. Petitioners visited campuses like the University of Arkansas – Little Rock and the University of Central Arkansas. Many working-class people, especially in the African American community, were very receptive to our campaign’s anti-racist message in the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin, and many were just happy to see the word “socialism.”
Lindsay/Osorio supporters carried out a similar effort in Vermont. Focusing their efforts on Burlington, volunteers braved freezing temperatures to collect the 1,000 valid signatures to be placed on the ballot. The workers and students who signed the petition were glad to hear that the two-party system would be challenged by a candidate who will fight against the bankers and CEOs.
Because of the overwhelming support Lindsay/Osorio campaign petitioners recieved from the people of Vermont, they were able to collect 2,000 signatures in less than a week.
We have also found many people willing to be electors for our campaign, a critical part of ballot access work. The campaign team was able to find one elector for each district in Arkansas plus two more at-large, while nine people were required to become electors in Colorado. Likewise 3 people volunteered to be an elector in Vermont while 14 did the same in New Jersey
Even at this early stage in the campaign, we are encountering a huge amount of support from people fed up with unemployment, foreclosures, discrimination and all the other injustices of capitalist society. The PSL campaign’s demand of seizing the banks to provide jobs, education, housing, and healthcare for all is clearly resonating.
We need your help to continue this effort
While our opponents can count on millions of dollars from Wall Street and round the clock coverage on corporate news outlets, we rely on the dedication of people who believe in justice, equality and the power of poor and working people. Please consider taking the following steps so that we can continue this crucial work:
