Richard Duncan can’t remember whether he voted for Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan.
He didn’t particularly like either, as iconic as each president might be for the major political parties. Duncan, 63, has dismissed their candidacies as part and parcel to a broken election system that serves partisans, not people.
“I think I’ll vote for myself instead this time, again,” the Aurora man said.
The retired postal worker, musician, Kent zoning commission member and former tavern owner first ran for president in 2004. He’s run in every presidential election since. It began with an itch to make use of a master’s degree in city planning (his platform hinges on economic development zones) and to help explain American politics to his daughter, then a senior at Aurora High School.
But it’s his disenchantment with the two-party system that has sustained him through a fourth seemingly quixotic candidacy.
Independents
Independent candidates dilute the popular vote with little chance of winning.
The only independent to win was George Washington. In his farewell address, he warned about overzealous party politics. Washington’s 32-page, handwritten speech is circulated today as a manifesto for independents.
Since the Republican and Democratic parties came to power 150 years ago, Ross Perot came closest to following in Washington’s footsteps, riding a populous wave of political resentment in 1992.
Perot launched the Reform Party in 1996, but ballot access laws forced him to run again as an independent.
“The main obstacle for third party and independent candidates isn’t the laws governing ballot access,” explained Ohio State professor Daniel Tokaji, an election law expert. “It’s the two-party structure of our political system.”
As American political philosopher Elmer Eric Schattschneider has written, “A political party is an organized attempt to get control of the government.”
And by definition, Tokaji said, independents oppose parties.
Beyond ballot access and party politics, a third factor keeps non-major party candidacies in check: money.
Duncan, like Perot, espouses small-government conservatism and deficit reduction. Perot supported stricter gun laws and abortions. Duncan does not.
But what most distinctly separates the Ohio real estate investor and the successful Texas businessman is the $64 million Perot spent to make himself known to the 19.7 Americans who voted for him.
Chances slim
Duncan isn’t delusional about his chances.
“I have a lot of people say, ‘Why are you doing this? You know you’re never going to win,’” the mission-driven man said. “But every thousand-mile journey starts with a single step.”
With no mapping software on his flip phone and 275,000 miles on his 1999 Toyota minivan, Duncan finds county fairs and sporting events on a folded Ohio road map. He circles the best places to reach voters.
“I find a path where I can go from one store to the next. So if I get kicked out [which happens], I can just move on,” Duncan said.
Sporting a newsboy cap, a tie, scuffed leather shoes and dress pants gently fraying at the hems, Duncan pitches campaign literature on a business card, not TV. “Are you positive you know who you want for president?” he asks.
Most people reject the card. Some get nasty. But many respond, “No. Not really.”
He stands outside Cavaliers and Browns games, resting against a 6-foot-tall sign. Using whiteout and a pen, the perennial candidate replaced the “2” in “2012” with a “6” this year, saving his $5,000 campaign a precious $30 in printing costs.
Standing outside a Bengals game in Cincinnati, Duncan convinced 37 Kentuckians in 2012 to add his name to their ballots.
Intentional impact
Short of a miracle, Duncan will lose this election.
A write-in in about 20 states, he’s only visibly on the ballot in Ohio.
In 2012, a mere 4.3 percent of the nation’s voters saw his name, unless it was posted at a polling site with other write-in candidates, as Kentucky does.
But it’s the race, not the outcome, that matters.
The 12,502 votes he received in 2012, up from 17 in 2004, has the potential to sway the national election — decided not too long ago by 537 votes in Florida. That’s all he wants, to have an impact on a political process he and other independents see as rigged to serve career politicians.
Duncan sees gerrymandering (the crafty way congressional district lines are drawn to benefit the party in power) and the absence of congressional term limits as evidence of political self-preservation. But more telling is the arduous path he must take to get noticed as an independent candidate.
Hoops and hurdles
In 2008 and 2012, he educated himself on ballot access rules, gathering 5,000 signatures each time to have his name appear on the ballot. In this election, he was given only a year to gather the signatures after state lawmakers tweaked election rules in 2013.
Requirements for getting on the ballot, as opposed to being a write-in candidate, are more challenging. Otherwise, presidential ballots would be littered with obscure names, confusing voters.
But, as Duncan’s efforts attest, qualifying as a write-in candidate isn’t exactly a cake walk.
Some states charge filing fees. Others require write-in candidates to line up dozens of “electors” who would travel to Washington, D.C., in the off chance Duncan wins. Other states ban write-in candidates. Some only report how many votes they get if they win.
Sensible sorting
Duncan navigates the nation’s patchwork of rules that govern presidential elections by keeping folders on each state’s unique filing deadlines and requirements. He prioritizes them into three piles: the too onerous, the doable and those that need done next.
Seven states require no prior action to be a write-in candidate. (Pennsylvania, where Duncan’s vice presidential candidate Ricky Johnson lives, is a no-hassle state. But Pennsylvania doesn’t report results for the lowest vote-getters. “If they don’t report it, I’ll never know and who cares,” Duncan said, tossing the state’s folder in the “don’t bother” stack.)
Some ask that a form be downloaded, filled out and notarized then sent in before a deadline.
A handful of states, like Ohio, require candidates to find strangers who agree to volunteer their time, phone number and a trip to the notary to sign up as an elector. In the off-chance Duncan wins, his electors ceremoniously travel to Washington, D.C., to “elect” him.
While campaigning at random grocery stores near Toledo, Duncan lined up six of the 14 Michigan electors he needs. He’s planning a trip to New England to scratch Connecticut and Massachusetts off the list.
New York, the fourth most populous state, requires one elector. California and Texas, which are in Duncan’s “don’t bother” pile, require 55 and 38 electors, respectively.
Other states require an elector from each congressional district. In Tallmadge, he met a woman from Wisconsin. He’ll have to drive west to find seven more strangers spread across Wisconsin’s other seven congressional districts.
Some states require filing fees. He ignores those that charge more than $50.
The most restrictive rules, though, require Duncan to gather hundreds of signatures. North Carolina asks for 500 valid voter signatures, each to mailed to its corresponding county board of elections for certification.
The last hurdle, Duncan has found, has nothing to do with filing but whether it’s even worth filing. States like Oregon and Washington lump together all votes for write-in candidates. Only if he wins will he ever know how well he did there.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug.