Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two Party Tyranny
by Theresa Amato
Click Here to Purchase from The New Press

Review by Jordon M. Greene (July 6, 2009)

In Grand Illusion, aptly subtitled "The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two Party Tyranny," Theresa Amato uses her experience as Ralph Nader's 2000 and 2004 Presidential Campaign Manager to show the troubles and hurdles that third party and independent candidates must endure to get on the election ballot and to allow the voter an alternative on Election Day. Amato shows from various experiences during the Nader campaign the extreme burdens that many states put on non-major party candidates such as large signature requirements, short filing deadlines, petitioner requirements, unwritten rules and regulation and legal challenges brought up against third party and independent candidacies by those wishing to keep them off the ballot. Amato also points out the difficulty incurred at the hands of various state Election Divisions or Boards of Elections, when these agencies do not know their own state's laws regulating candidates, and are much less able to explain those requirements correctly to those wishing to comply with the law and run for office outside of the two major parties. Sadly, as some in North Carolina may already understand, North Carolina is one of those states that Amato mentions in this category.

Grand Illusion puts the issue of ballot access in the perspective it needs to be, an atrocity, an unconstitutional and unreasonable burden on both the candidate's right to run for office and more importantly the peoples' right to vote their choice for public office. As a whole, I strongly encourage those who wish to know more about the problem of ballot access, and how it affects the citizen's right to vote to read this new, eye-opening book. It will make you glad to see that people, like Amato, are standing up for your right to vote, while at the same time some of the chilling rhetoric and statements made by the major parties and state officials shown within the books text can drive you fighting mad that such things would be spoken in our so-called free democracy.

Yet, before you go out and read Grand Illusion, allow me to warn those who support the Electoral College, albeit with some needed reform away from its current winner-take-all system, or favor not giving the Federal government any more power than they already have, as well as those who oppose publicly financed campaigns, that there will be some areas of Grand Illusion that you may not necessarily agree with as I and the NCFPE-PAC do not. While Amato's book is nearly three-fourths about the ballot access problem, Amato also shows in Grand Illusion that she favors eliminating the Electoral College altogether for a National Popular Vote, instituting more publicly (taxpayer) funded campaigns and establishing more federal control over elections, these reforms are not what the NCFPE believe are necessary nor needed. Yet, it never hurts to learn a wide array of opinions on any given issue, it rather can help us better understand where we stand.

More importantly though, Amato's book does convey the urgent need to open up the electoral system to more competition by eliminating or greatly reducing the restrictions put on third party and independent candidacies to precipitate a more openly participatory democratic system where all have the right to vote regardless of political affiliation, which is the main issue here. Overall, Amato's expose on ballot access and the current electoral system of the United States is well done, and needs to be read by many across our nation, mostly politicians in our state and federal legislatures. Amato's Grand Illusion is a must-read.

Copyright © 2009 Jordon M. Greene. Jordon M. Greene is the President and Founder of the North Carolinians for Free and Proper Elections PAC, member of the Constitution Party of North Carolina's State Executive Committee and Ballot Access Committee, Political Science student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and formerly served in 2008 as Campaign Manager for the Bryan Greene 2008 Congressional Campaign Committee.