Ballot access is restrictive enough without adding inflexible bureaucracy to the mix.

Two examples from this election season in Minnesota:

Rep. Gil Gutknecht, who routinely files petitions to get on the ballot rather than pay a $300 filing fee (a gimmick meant to highlight his fiscal conservativism), is facing a challenge because he gathered the signatures for the petition outside of a two-week window prescribed by state law.
http://www.startribune.com/587/story/614563.html

As an aside, I'm not sure how this highlights Gutknecht's careful use of money, since it seems to me that it could easily cost more than $300 to gather the necessary signatures.

But more importantly, this is stupid. The purpose of a petition requirement is to demonstrate some minimal level of support so that the ballot isn't cluttered with dozens of cranks and protest candidates. It's reasonable to have some sort of time requirement to ensure that the signatures are relatively "fresh", but a two-week window right before the filing deadline is unnecessarily restrictive.

And trying to disqualify Gutknecht from running on such a technicality -- when he could have just paid the $300 to file -- is a tactic that damages democracy.

Meanwhile, an Independence Party candidate for the state House, Brian Smith, has been left off the ballot for following instructions from the Secretary of State's office.
http://www.startribune.com/587/story/614441.html

Okay, two things. First, Smith should get a pass simply because he was given bad info by Kiffmeyer's office. Second and more importantly, though, should someone really be kept off the ballot because they filed in the wrong office? Is that really supportive of democracy?

Ballot access should be considered a near-right. Restrictions on it must be reasonable and narrowly construed. And candidates should be given the benefit of the doubt in nearly all cases, rather than kept from running because of stupid technicalities. Give voters more choices, not fewer.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

the rules are the rules. One of the tricks of the trade in any bureaucracy is to put up barriers to throw off the less serious, the pretenders, so that only the serious and motivated will continue. This is true of welfare recipients and politicians alike.

These guys should have known better. If a guy doesn't know how to file, or where to file, how can I expect him to protect my interests?

I have always believed you can get a pilot's license for a Boeing 777 just by going to your friendly city hall clerk and takling out a permit to expand your garage. I'm then going to get a permit to construct my own nuclear power-plant, by talking to the Chamber of Commerce.

That sounds pretty lame, doesn't it, when applied to "the wrong office" argument you make.

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Delivering tasty bite-sized Clues to liberals since 1965.

It would if it was relevant.

The Secretary of State is responsible for certifying candidates. So going to her office to register is not akin to getting a pilot's license at a laundromat. It's going to the source, having your registration accepted, and then having it rejected after the fact because you were supposed to hand your registration in at an office in a different county, which would then forward it to the Secretary of State.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

Doesn't the candidate bear some responsibility for knowing the process before the dead line arrives and before entering into the process? While I acknowledge that the mis-step is somewhat understandable what does it say about the candidate and his/her understanding of the process?
What about the responsibility of the person receiving the submission? Wouldn't you think that person would know they did not accept it?
I smell a conspiracy to keep some one off the ballot!!

Some. But given the complexities involved, I think it's perfectly reasonable for a candidate to ask someone who should know, like the Secretary of State's office, and then follow that advice.

Getting screwed by bureaucracy isn't a disqualifying blemish on a candidate, IMO.

I smell incompetence.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.