As I have mentioned on other pages of this site, my candidacy has been contingent upon the Green Party of Texas achieving statewide ballot access. You should know that the state of Texas has rather anti-democratic election laws in regard to ballot access. The Republicans and Democrats here have created laws that make it quite hard for any “third” parties to achieve or maintain ballot access.
It might seem a small task to acquire 44,000 petition signatures in 75 days when they can be gathered from anywhere in the state, but that becomes much harder when the requirement that all signers must be not only registered to vote in Texas, but must not have participated in the primaries of the Republicans or Democrats.
When our media limits coverage almost exclusively to Republicans and Democrats, it is very hard to get a foot in the door. Then they add the further barrier that once ballot access is attained, a party must receive at least 5% of the vote in a statewide race in order to maintain ballot access in the next election cycle, or else must repeat the petition-gathering process. That means that even if we had achieved ballot access this year, and even if I had won my race, I would not be able to seek reelection two years hence unless either one of the Green Party’s candidate for a statewide office or US Senate received at least 5% of the vote in their race, or the Green Party succeeded in yet another statewide ballot access drive.
As it happens, the Green Party did not achieve ballot access in Texas this year, so my candidacy is basically over. Unless there is a silent following out there reading this weblog, planning to support me in November, and willing now to generate 500 petition signatures for me to run as a write-in candidate (deadline August 26th), then you will not be able to vote for me in November.
If anyone is interested in helping me mount a write-in campaign, please contact me as soon as possible to discuss that possibility.
For those of you interested in continuing the pursuit of democracy here in the United States, please go to my other blog.
Transform25's Weblog 
Jesse Phelps said,
May 12, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I have always been rather disappointed that so few people understand that the USA is not currently a democracy-
I appreciate that someone is actually running on a platform designed to put the power back into the hands of the people- and to actually represent their opinions.
Dan Eckam said,
September 23, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I’ll probably write you in as my vote anyway. It’s either that or abstain… I sure can’t vote for any of the losers who are on the ballot.