Christina Tobin

Last updated
Christina Tobin
Christina Tobin in 2022.jpg
Tobin in 2022
Born (1981-06-17) June 17, 1981 (age 42) [1]
Alma mater Saint Mary's University of Minnesota
Occupation(s)Founder and Chair of The Free & Equal Elections Foundation
Political party Independent
[2]

Christina Tobin (born June 17, 1981) is an American activist and leader in the election reform and voters' rights movements. She is the founder and chair of The Free & Equal Elections Foundation, [3] and president and chief executive officer of Free and Equal, Inc. [4]

Contents

Background

Tobin was born in Pasadena, Texas, in 1981. She grew up in Texas and Illinois and graduated from Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois. She attended Saint Mary's University in Winona, Minnesota where she served as varsity tennis captain and volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. In 2004, she earned a bachelor's degree in graphic design with a minor in business marketing.

Career and activism

Tobin started her career as a non-partisan ballot access coordinator. An expert in defending signatures and coordinating petition drives, Tobin has helped gather and defend over one million signatures for independents, the Green Party, [5] the Constitution Party, the Republican Party, [6] the Democratic Party, the Libertarian Party [7] and the Socialist Equality Party.

Illinois campaigns

In the 1998 election for governor of Illinois, Tobin helped defend over 60,000 signatures for her father, Libertarian candidate James Tobin. In 2002, she personally gathered over 5,000 signatures and successfully defended 55,000 signatures for Cal Skinner, who was running for governor, and her father, who was running for lieutenant governor representing the Libertarian Party. [8]

In the 2004 presidential election, Tobin defended 29,000 signatures in Illinois for Ralph Nader when he ran as an independent. [9] She also sued Democratic State Chair Michael Madigan alleging that he used his full-time state employees to have Nader removed from the Illinois ballot. [10]

For the November 2006 election, she successfully defended 39,000 signatures for Rich Whitney, the Green Party candidate for Illinois governor. [11]

Ralph Nader's 2008 presidential campaign

In 2008, Tobin served as Ralph Nader's national ballot access coordinator. [12] She helped collect more than 500,000 signatures to put Ralph Nader on the District of Columbia ballot and 45 state presidential ballots, [13] more than any other third party or independent candidate. While coordinating the national ballot drive in 50 states, Tobin organized a successful petition drive in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New York.

BaliJewel Inc. lawsuit

In 2008, Tobin filed a lawsuit against John Hardy Limited, alleging harassment of jewelry designers in Bali and improper copyrighting of a Balinese folk motif. [14]

Free & Equal Elections Foundation

In 2008, Tobin founded the Free & Equal Elections Foundation, [15] a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan grassroots organization, whose mission is to empower American voters through education.

Free and Equal, Inc.

In March 2009, Tobin founded Free and Equal, Inc., a non-partisan, full-service ballot access consulting and petitioning firm that specializes in independent and third-party candidates. Tobin has helped gather and defend over one million signatures for independents, the Green Party, [5] the Constitution Party, the Republican Party, [6] the Democratic Party, the Libertarian Party [7] and the Socialist Equality Party. Free and Equal, Inc. does not endorse any candidates for office. She serves as president and chief executive officer.

Taxpayers United of America

In 2011, Tobin served as Vice President of Taxpayers United of America, founded by her father James Tobin. Her work exposed big pension payouts in Illinois and other states. [16]

Activism to Stop the Top Two Primary System

Tobin is a passionate activist against the top two primary systems. In 2012, she founded Stop Top Two, [17] a movement designed to educate voters of the machinations behind the relatively new electoral trend. Louisiana, Washington and California elections are now controlled via top two primary systems. Arizona's version of a top two primary system, Proposition 121, was defeated by Arizona voters November 2012. The main objective of Tobin's Stop Top Two movement was to defeat the proposition through education, media outreach and panel discussions, including the "Problems with Arizona's Top Two Primary System – Proposition 121" panel presented by the Free & Equal Elections Foundation at the Goldwater Institute on October 9, 2012. [18]

Debates

Free & Equal hosts open, all-inclusive gubernatorial, Presidential and senatorial debates, including the 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020 Presidential debates moderated by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, [19] broadcast legend Larry King, [20] Thom Hartmann of Free Speech TV, [21] and Emmy Award winning actor Ed Asner. [22]

Tobin appeared on The Jimmy Dore Show on October 5, 2023 to announce the 2024 Presidential debate series. Dore and Tobin will serve as moderators.

California Secretary of State candidacy

In 2010, Tobin ran as a Libertarian Party candidate for the California Secretary of State election. [23] [24] She formally announced her candidacy for Secretary of State on February 23, 2010. [25] She was the only candidate seeking the Libertarian Party nomination. Richard Winger, editor and publisher of Ballot Access News was her campaign manager.

In the general election, Tobin came in fourth with 214,347 votes, 2.3 percent of the total votes cast. [26]

Related Research Articles

The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) is a federation of Green state political parties in the United States. The party promotes green politics, specifically environmentalism; nonviolence; social justice; participatory democracy; grassroots democracy; anti-war; anti-racism; eco-socialism. On the political spectrum, the party is generally seen as left-wing. As of 2023, it is the fourth-largest political party in the United States by voter registration, behind the Libertarian Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2000 United States presidential election</span> 54th quadrennial U.S. presidential election

The 2000 United States presidential election was the 54th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 2000. Republican candidate George W. Bush, the incumbent governor of Texas and eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush, won the election, narrowly defeating incumbent Vice President Al Gore. It was the fourth of five American presidential elections, and the first since 1888, in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote, and is considered one of the closest U.S. presidential elections, with long-standing controversy about the result. Gore conceded the election on December 13.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peace and Freedom Party</span> American left-wing political party

The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is a left-wing political party with ballot status in California. Its first candidates appeared on the 1966 New York ballot. The Peace and Freedom Party of California was organized in early 1967, gathering over 103,000 registrants which qualified its ballot status in January 1968 under the California Secretary of State Report of Registration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reform Party of the United States of America</span> American political party

The Reform Party of the United States of America (RPUSA), generally known as the Reform Party USA or the Reform Party, is a centrist political party in the United States, founded in 1995 by Ross Perot.

Third party, or minor party, is a term used in the United States for political parties other than the two major parties: the Republican and Democratic parties.

Ballot access are rules and procedures regulating the right to candidacy, the conditions under which a candidate, political party, or ballot measure is entitled to appear on voters' ballots in elections in the United States. The jurisprudence of the right to candidacy and right to create a political party are less clear than voting rights in the United States. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has established in multiple cases that the federal constitution does not recognize a fundamental right to candidacy, and that state governments have a legitimate government interest in blocking "frivolous or fraudulent candidacies". As election processes are decentralized by Article I, Section 4, of the United States Constitution, ballot access laws are established and enforced by the states. As a result, ballot access processes may vary from one state to another. State access requirements for candidates generally pertain to personal qualities of a candidate, such as: minimum age, residency, and citizenship. Additionally, many states require prospective candidates to collect a specified number of qualified voters' signatures on petitions of support and mandate the payment of filing fees before granting access; ballot measures are similarly regulated. Each state also regulates how political parties qualify for automatic ballot access, and how those minor parties that do not can. Fundamental to democracy, topics related to ballot access are the subject of considerable debate in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Gonzalez</span> American politician(born 1965)

Matthew Edward Gonzalez is an American politician, lawyer, and activist. He served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 2001 to 2005 and was president of the Board. In 2003, Gonzalez, running as a member of the Green Party, lost a race for mayor of San Francisco to Democrat Gavin Newsom. In the 2008 presidential election, Gonzalez ran for vice president as the running mate of candidate Ralph Nader. As of February 2024, he works as the Chief Attorney at the San Francisco Public Defender's Office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">U.S. Marijuana Party</span> Political party

The United States Marijuana Party is a cannabis political party in the United States founded in 2002 by Loretta Nall specifically to end the war on drugs and to legalize cannabis. Their policies also include other socially libertarian positions. U.S. Marijuana Party candidates in Vermont have run campaigns as recently as 2016. The party has had local chapters in several other states, and has been affiliated with international cannabis political parties.

The Green Party of the United States originated in 1984 when 62 people from the U.S. gathered in St. Paul, Minnesota and founded the first national Green organization - the Committees of Correspondence. The Green Party of the U.S. has gone through several evolutions, from debating theory and praxis in the 1980s, to starting state parties in the 1990s, to the founding of a national political party in the 2000s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green Party of Arkansas</span> Arkansas affiliate of the Green Party

The Green Party of Arkansas is the state party organization for Arkansas of the Green Party of the United States.

The 2008 presidential campaign of Ralph Nader, political activist, author, lecturer and attorney began on February 24, 2008. He announced his intent to run as an independent candidate, on NBC's Meet The Press. It was Nader's fifth campaign; he ran in the four election cycles prior to 2008: 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004. The 2008 election was the third in which he had officially run a national campaign. While Nader ran as an independent, in some states he had ballot access with the Independent-Ecology Party, the Natural Law Party, and the Peace and Freedom Party. Nader received 738,475 votes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Barr 2008 presidential campaign</span> American presidential campaign

The 2008 presidential campaign of Bob Barr, former Congressman of Georgia began on May 12, 2008. He announced his candidacy for the Libertarian Party's president after months of grassroots draft efforts. Barr was criticized by Libertarians who opposed his efforts in Congress, which included sponsorship of the Defense of Marriage Act and votes in favor of the USA PATRIOT Act and authorization of the War in Iraq, but he was supported by others who accepted his regret for those positions. Barr won the party's nomination after six rounds of balloting at the 2008 Libertarian Party National Convention. Former contender Wayne Allyn Root was named as his running mate. Reason magazine senior editor Radley Balko called Barr "the first serious candidate the LP has run since I've been eligible to vote."

This article contains lists of official third party and independent candidates associated with the 2012 United States presidential election.

The 2008 presidential campaign of Brian Patrick Moore, a local activist from Florida, began when he announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in St. Louis, Missouri, on October 19, 2007. The same month he was declared the nominee of the Socialist Party USA for the 2008 presidential election. The SPUSA national convention elected Stewart Alexis Alexander of California as Moore's vice presidential nominee.

The bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) held four debates for the 2012 U.S. presidential general election, slated for various locations around the United States in October 2012 – three of them involving the major party presidential nominees; those being Democratic President Barack Obama from Illinois and Republican Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, and one involving the vice-presidential nominees, those being Vice President Joe Biden from Delaware and Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free & Equal Elections Foundation</span> American nonprofit organization

The Free & Equal Elections Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan organization in the United States, the mission of which is to empower American voters through education and advocacy of electoral reforms. Free & Equal leads national, state, and local efforts to open the electoral process in the United States by hosting all-inclusive gubernatorial, Presidential, and senatorial debates; organizing Electoral Reform Symposiums; producing United We Stand tours; and supporting individuals running for office. Free & Equal was first organized in 1982 as the Foundation for Free Campaigns and Elections, before being formally reorganized in 2008 by Christina Tobin, an American activist and leader in the election reform and voters' rights movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 Green Party presidential primaries</span>

The 2016 Green Party presidential primaries were a series of primaries, caucuses and state conventions in which voters elected delegates to represent a candidate for the Green Party's nominee for President of the United States at the 2016 Green National Convention. The primaries, held in numerous states on various dates from January to July 2016, featured elections publicly funded and held as an alternative ballot, concurrent with the Democratic and Republican primaries, and elections privately funded by the Green Party, held non-concurrently with the major party primaries. Over 400 delegates to the Green National Convention were elected in these primaries, with a candidate needing a simple majority of these delegates to become the party's nominee for president.

The Green presidential debates are a series of political debates between the Green candidates for president in the United States 2020 presidential election.

References

  1. "JoinCalifornia – Christina Tobin". www.joincalifornia.com.
  2. 1 2 https://www.facebook.com/pg/Christina-Tobin-525849220821918/about/?entry_point=page_nav_about_item&tab=page_info [ user-generated source ]
  3. "About « Free And Equal". Freeandequal.org. Archived from the original on 2010-11-06. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
  4. "Free & Equal Inc. – Full-Service Ballot Access Consulting and Petitioning Firm". Freeandequalinc.com. Archived from the original on 2010-11-19. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
  5. 1 2 "Daily Herald | Foes try to knock Green Party off ballot in 14th Congressional District". Daily Herald. dailyherald.com. 21 November 2009. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  6. 1 2 "Blogger: Aanmelden om te lezen". Chicagoray.blogspot.com. 4 February 2009. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
  7. 1 2 "Challenging Illinois' Ballot Access Laws — Illinois Green Party". www.ilgp.org. Archived from the original on November 19, 2008.
  8. "Huntley School Supt. Burkey Says He Used Vacation Days to Go to China". McHenry County Blog. 2010-03-13. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
  9. "Nader collects enough signatures for Illinois ballot spot – Rockford, IL – Rockford Register Star". Rrstar.com. 2008-06-24. Archived from the original on 2012-09-09. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
  10. Mullman, Jeremy (2004-09-27). "Nader aide sues Madigan | Law | Crain's Chicago Business". Chicagobusiness.com. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
  11. "Illinois Third Parties Unite to Protest Gov. Blagojevich's Ballot Fraud, Have Proof of Blago's Frivolous Objections — Illinois Green Party". www.ilgp.org. Archived from the original on May 28, 2009.
  12. "Nader/Gonzalez Submit Signatures for Illinois Ballot Line – Ralph Nader for President in 2008". Votenader.org. 2008-06-20. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
  13. "Ballot Access News » Blog Archive » Ralph Nader's Ballot Labels". Ballot-access.org. 25 August 2008. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
  14. "Prominent Bali Jewelry Firm Sued in US". thebalitimes.com. 18 January 2008. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  15. "Free & Equal | More Voices, More Choices". freeandequal.org. Archived from the original on 28 November 2017. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  16. "Chicago Teachers Receiving Big Pension Payouts? | On Air Videos | Fox News". video.foxnews.com. May 2013. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  17. "Stop Top Two". stoptoptwo.org. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  18. "Parker Pioneer – ParkerPioneer.net – News". parkerpioneer.net. 15 October 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  19. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : Third Party Presidential Debate (Full Video). YouTube .
  20. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : 2012 Third Party Presidential Debate | 2012 Third Party Presidential Debate | Ora TV. YouTube .
  21. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : 2012 Second Presidential Debate Moderated by Thom Hartmann & Christina Tobin. YouTube .
  22. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : 2016 Presidential Debate Moderated by Ed Asner & Christina Tobin. YouTube .
  23. "Christina Tobin | Libertarian Party". Lp.org. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
  24. "Ballot Access News » Blog Archive » Three Well-Known Election Law Activists Run for California Secretary of State". Ballot-access.org. 6 March 2010. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
  25. "Campaign Kickoff « Christina Tobin For Secretary of State". tobinforca.org. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  26. www.sos.ca.gov https://web.archive.org/web/20140611025242/http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/sov/2010-general/complete-sov.pdf. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 11, 2014.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)