Greg Ballard Calls Out Indiana Primary System as Taxpayer-Funded Barrier to Ballot Access

Let’s talk about this press release Greg Ballard put out the other day because I think it’s very interesting. And basically what he is saying, now look, we’re honest brokers here because we dislike all the people equally, so we can tell you what’s going on. Greg Ballard saying this now because he wants to be an independent candidate for secretary of state. Greg Ballard was the mayor of Indianapolis for eight years, and I never once remember Greg Ballard complaining about the primary process. So while we’re going to give Ballard credit for what he’s saying, the real time would have been if you believed in that, to say it when you had some juice in the Republican Party as the mayor of Indianapolis. So let’s just put that out there right away, Ballard saying this because it will be politically expedient and help him in the fall by saying this, he didn’t believe this or say this, or if he believed it, he didn’t say it when he was the mayor of Indianapolis.

Greg Ballard Challenges Indiana’s Closed Primary System and Ballot Access Rules

But basically what Ballard is saying is the thing that we have been saying for years, which is if the Republicans and Democrats are so inept that they can’t run their private business, because we keep it, well their private political parties, if the Republicans and Democrats are so inept that they can’t run their private business without taxpayer money, then they shouldn’t be able to prohibit people from running for public office. And this is what the Republicans and Democrats do. They take millions of dollars of our money because I guess they’re too inept, incompetent to run their elections without taking our money. Then they get off on laughing about how they keep 80% of the population from being able to run in their private clubs. That’s how this works. Republicans and Democrats have a monopoly essentially on the elections. Ballot access, other than the Libertarians, we’ll get to them in a second, but in terms of primary ballot access, the Republicans and Democrats have a monopoly. They take your money, and then they do everything in their power, unless they like you, to keep you from running for public office. That’s why they have these ridiculously high entry barriers to hop over in order to run as a Republican or Democrat. And what Ballard is saying is, okay, if you’re going to have those high barriers to access and you are a private club, then don’t take everyone’s money. Or if you’re going to take everyone’s money, let people run for the offices and for the parties they’re forced to fund.

How Taxpayer-Funded Primaries Benefit Political Parties While Limiting Competition

So here’s what Ballard wrote, and by the way the Indiana Capital Chronicle has an article on this, quote, "The Republican and Democrat parties need to make it easier for everyday Hoosiers to run, or they must pay the cost for their closed primary elections. The primary system in Indiana is broken and needs to be accessible to all Hoosiers anxious to serve their state." Agreed. Where was this ten years ago, Greg Ballard? I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. Now maybe he’s had some sort of Ebenezer Scrooge type of epiphany that just conveniently coincides with him trying to get on the ballot as an independent. Look, the Libertarians do this every year. The Libertarians have ballot access. They nominate their candidates at their own cost, of their own expense, at their own conventions. Costs you nothing. If the Libertarians can figure out how to do it with nine dollars to their name, why is it that the Republicans and Democrats can’t do it with all the robust donor class at their disposal?

Indiana Primary Elections Cost Millions While Excluding Most Voters

The Capital Chronicle dug into this a little bit more in the article and had a little bit more on Ballard’s press release, and Ballard’s campaign to their credit cited a Secretary of State’s office report finding that the Indiana primary, so just the primaries, not the general election, but the primaries, cost taxpayers $13.3 million. $13.3 million of your money and 80% of the people can’t participate. Look, this is almost as egregious as the state taking $200 million of your money and giving it to people to have free daycare, a lot of them who don’t work, and you don’t get to participate. Hey, we’re going to pay all this money for daycare, great, can I sign up, no, you make too much money. Seems very selective and rather vindictive, sort of like the two political parties, the Democrats and Republicans, saying well you can’t run for public office but you have to pay for it. $13.3 million, no money for roads, but we had $13.3 million in the most recent election laying around for the Republicans and Democrats to force you to pay for their private business.

Critics Say Political Parties Use Primaries for Free Advertising and Control

By the way, Republicans and Democrats, they can do this. They do this every two years when they nominate the secretary of state, the treasurer, the comptroller, the attorney general and the lieutenant governor at their conventions. They pick their nominees at conventions. So they can do it, they just don’t want to do it. Why? Because they use the primaries as free advertising. They get tens of millions of dollars in earned media, and you pay for it by funding the primaries. So I thought Ballard was spot on with this, I thought he was 100% right. Now I think he’s doing it out of political expedience rather than he actually, well he’s probably actually worried about it now because he has to run as an independent and pay all his own money to get those signatures, but he’s spot on about how pathetic the Republicans and Democrats are that they force you to pay for their elections. Then they gleefully celebrate, they do happy dances, they run around in the street, they post on social media about being able to keep you off the ballot.