Though the banking industry continues to collapse like a flan in a cupboard due to ever more ingenious ways of punting debt – henceforth known as “sophisticated financial instruments” – I won’t be overreacting and attempting to talk about economics or anything of the sort. Instead, there’s still an increasingly irrelevant election to determine who will be burned in effigy in a year or two when we’re all living in McCain/Obamavilles made out of surplus cow-patterned computer boxes.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are actually a plethora of candidates for the Presidency that our leaders aren’t telling us about. In fact, right here in Louisiana, they’re actively conspiring to keep these choices off of the ballot, depriving citizens of their rights to throw their votes away on marginal and/or insane candidates.

While Ralph Nader frequently challenges ballot access laws – though you’d think by this point that the various secretary of state’s offices would know his number by heart – only Louisiana will actually summon a hurricane to deny access to third-party candidates. It seems that the end of filing period for Louisiana was right in the middle of a Hurricane Gustav-related closing of the Secretary of State’s office. While the deadline was extended a few days after the storm –as is required – the SoS didn’t bother to announce this anywhere. Thus, when Libertarian Bob Barr filed on September 10, and when Socialist candidate Brian Moore filed on September 11, they were both denied, having fallen a few days behind the (extended) September 8th deadline.  Now, together at last, the two parties are filing a joint lawsuit against Secretary Jay Dardenne, claiming “…attempted disenfranchisement of the state’s socialist-leaning voters.” All 1,795 of them.

Questionable registration practices are nothing new, of course, and we’ve even covered a similar story relating to new voter registration in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes. Democrats, in particular, are keen to find instances of voter suppression, believing them key to GOP electoral strategy. During the Democratic primary, there were even reports of a group called Women’s Voices, Women Vote attempting to confuse or suppress voting during the North Carolina primary. In a close election, there will undoubtedly be similar allegations this year, as well.

While most of the media heat and light will be spent on allegations about polling places and misleading robocalls, it is a shame that here in Louisiana I can’t cast my vote for the party with the most compelling animated gif, or the least appealing color scheme. You’d think that the state that gave birth to the Share Our Wealth party would have a little more class than that.