Candidate Services
Free & Equal, Incorporated is your full service ballot access consultant. Most companies in this business will just get your signatures and then walk away. Free & Equal will be with your campaign from beginning to end, for less money than these petitioning companies will charge.
Free & Equal has separate corporate and nonprofit units to allow us to offer your campaign so much more than just a spot on the ballot. Besides delivering the highest quality petition signatures at the lowest possible price, Free & Equal is also your ally to:
- Help you plan the early stages of your campaign,
- Answer and defeat any challenges against your signatures,
- Make sure you are included in any all debates during your campaign,
- Publicize your campaign locally and nationally, and
- Manage any recount process.
There is no extra charge for any of these extra services.
That’s right, you not only get the best deal on signatures from Free & Equal, you get all our other ballot access services for free!
Free & Equal has the team and the contacts with the experience to secure your name on the ballot.
Christina Tobin, our CEO, managed ballot access for the Ralph Nader Presidential campaign in 2008. Tobin also organized the only nationally televised debates for third party Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates held in 2008. She has also been a consultant to a variety of campaigns on a nonpartisan basis since 1996. Christina has coordinated many petition drives with a collective total of over 1 million signatures.
We have the contacts in the petitioning world to hire the best available people. We also can fully train your volunteers as well as new people hired directly from your community. Our screening process assures you that our people will represent you well as they help you get on the ballot. Free & Equal will study and follow all the applicable state and local laws governing your petitioning process, and follow them exactly.
With most petitioning companies, once they have delivered the final signatures you’ll never hear from them again unless they are looking for more work.
With Free & Equal, petition gathering is only the first stage of the process.
Our people will stay with you to verify and sort your signatures to prepare the strongest possible product when it is time to turn them in for certification. We’ll review them for any errors, exclude any bad signatures, and ensure you have enough to easily meet your verification requirement.
We have extensive experience with the challenge process in those states which allow it. If necessary, we will even recruit an experienced and passionate ballot access attorney to represent you. This service as well is included in the price of your signatures.
Free & Equal is committed to debates which include all candidates as an essential aspect of elections. We will agitate, publicly and privately, to ensure you are included in all debates. If there are no fully inclusive debates in your race, we will organize one ourselves. We’ll use our extensive network of local and national media contacts to promote debates which include you – again, for free!
Your campaign does not end on Election Day. Here as well, Free & Equal will remain at your side to ensure that your votes are counted properly. We will come to your aid if you need to take action to receive an accurate count, and manage any recount process if necessary.
Free & Equal has extensive experience in all of these phases of a campaign. We have managed campaigns of any scale, from national ones all the way down to local races in small towns.
No job is too big or too small for Free & Equal. Besides our success in many statewide ballot access efforts, we specialize in local and small district campaigns, taking care to only get signatures from your pool of eligible voters. No matter the scale, our full range of ballot access services can delivered to you at a price that will beat the competition.
Free & Equal is available to the following kinds of campaigns on a nonpartisan basis:
- Statewide and local initiatives,
- State party petitioning or voter registration drives,
- Individual candidate petitions in special elections,
- Independents and individual candidates from any third party, and even
- Democratic and Republican candidates with a record of supporting truly Free & Equal elections.
Free & Equal draws support from all across the political spectrum and remains fiercely nonpartisan. The only limits we place on ideology are that we will not support initiatives, candidates or parties which support racism, sexism, or homophobia, or which advocate violence as a political solution.
Free & Equal exists because our system of government can only work when every citizen has an equal share in the rights and responsibilities of participation in running it.
As an Independent, third party or underdog candidate, know that you are not alone! When you add Free & Equal to your campaign team, you will have experienced and committed professionals with you every step of the way, from the gathering of your first signature to the counting of your last vote.
Now is the time to start planning for a campaign in 2010!
Please call Christina Tobin at 312-320-4101 for free advice on how to get started and a competitive price quote to take care of all your ballot access needs.
Free & Equal, Inc. is a full-service ballot access consulting and petitioning firm specializing in ballot access for independent and third party candidates.
