Signing the petition simply indicated the voter's belief that the third party deserved a place on the ballot. Despite the importance of third and new parties to our political system, the topic of restrictive ballot-access laws gets very little scholarly attention. Groups that are harmed the most by ballot-access laws tend to lack the clout required to command media attention. What media coverage there is of the topic is often muddled or misleading. Even though the complete inaccuracy of this statement was brought to his attention, no correction was made.
Scholarly works are often no better.
But as was mentioned earlier in this article, the 1924 ballot-access laws were far less rigid than today's. The fact remains that active and vigorous third parties play a vital role in maintaining the health of our two-party system. Yet if Professor Baradat and others like him had their way, public financing and ballot-access laws would be made even more discriminatory toward third parties. The Federal Government would artificially extend the Democratic and Republican parties far beyond their natural life cycle, thus condemning us to ever greater levels of stagnation and voter apathy. In order to keep our political system healthy, we must once again allow people the freedom to vote for the qualified candidate of their choice.