This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Jenna Ashley Robinson, campus outreach coordinator for the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

Third parties and independent candidates in North Carolina rarely attract attention at election time. And for good reason: North Carolina has some of the most restrictive ballot access laws in the nation. These laws prevent third parties and independent candidates from getting on the ballot and remove third parties from the ballot if they don’t reach high vote thresholds in statewide elections. Until this year, the threshold was 10 percent; it was recently dropped to 2 percent.

Each state has its own ballot access laws to determine who may appear on ballots and who may not. According to Article I, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution, the authority to regulate the time, place, and manner of federal elections is up to each state, unless Congress legislates otherwise.

The main rationale put forward by states for restricting ballot access has been the argument that setting ballot access criteria too low would result in numerous frivolous candidates cluttering the ballot, which would cause confusion for voters. However, proponents of ballot access reform say that reasonably easy access to the ballot does not lead to a glut of candidates. Moreover, on the rare occasions that crowding occurs, election results have shown that it does not confuse voters.

At 69,734 verified signatures, North Carolina’s ballot access requirement for political parties ranks as the third most restrictive in the nation. A federal court recently overturned the state’s requirement for independent candidates, which stood at roughly 100,000, No. 2 in the country.

A majority of states require 10,000 or fewer signatures for independent candidates. More than 20 states require 10,000 or fewer signatures for political parties as well. Nine states require 5,000 or fewer signatures for both independents and parties.

The plurality electoral system, which is used in North Carolina and most of the United States, explains the dominance of two major parties. Most political scientists agree that a two-party system comes into existence in any society in which elections are based on the “winner-take-all” system, wherein the winner must earn only a plurality of votes to win the election. This makes it difficult, but not impossible, for small parties to lure voters.

However, throughout most of our history, the American political system contained powerful third parties. Some of the best examples of this are the Greenback Party, the Union Labor Party, and the Peoples’ Party. And in the early 20th century, politicians of both the Democratic and Republican parties began to pursue social, environmental, political, and economic reforms as a result of the popular Progressive movement.

In the 19th century, major parties were replaced with new ones on three occasions. The Federalists were replaced in the 1820s by the National Republican Party. The National Republican Party then yielded to the Whig Party, and the Whigs were subsequently replaced by the Republican Party in 1854.

Since that time, ballot access laws have changed, becoming significantly more stringent in the late 1880s, and even more so throughout the 20th century.

The only third party to achieve ballot access regularly in North Carolina, the Libertarians, often spent nine months and $100,000 on that effort. No third party has ever met the signature requirement without the use of professional petitioners. With a deadline as early as May 2008, the party still needs about 15,000 more signatures to ensure its place on the ballot. The state’s only other third party, the Greens, have far fewer than the 69,734 required signatures.

Fair and equal access to the ballot allows ordinary citizens to participate in the electoral process. More choice on the ballot increases citizen interest and voter turnout.

But aside from practical considerations, some critics of ballot access restrictions argue that restrictions can affect fundamental constitutional rights. They argue that when the restrictions infringe on the rights of a candidate or a voter to associate with a political party, individuals’ rights of political association under the First Amendment have been violated. It has also been argued that ballot access restrictions infringe the right to petition the government and other rights to due process of law.

North Carolina needs ballot access reform to foster a thriving, competitive democracy.