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By SHARON KILPATRICK
Rappahannock Newt Staff Writer
Voters who are dissatisfied with making a choice between President Bill Clinton and former Sen. Bob Dole have plenty of other choices.
Besides the Democratic and Republican parties, four other parties have qualified for the presidential ballot in Virginia.
Leading the list is the Virginia Reform Party with presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and vice presidential candidate Pat Choate. Also on the ballot is the Virginia Taxpayers Party with Howard Phillips as the candidate for president and Albion Knight Jr. as the candidate for vice president. The Natural Law Party has also qualified with John Hagelin as. the presidential candidate and Mike Tompkins for vice president, and the Libertarian Party with Harry Browne as the candidate fdr president and Jo Jorgenson for .vice president has also qualified for the ballot.
Under the names of these candidates are a list of electors pledged to support them in the Electoral College if they carry Virginia.
It is because voters are actually selecting electors that write-in votes are not allowed in presidential elections in Virginia. Parties which are not on the ballot have not qualified a list of electors. Other states do allow write-in votes for president and vice president, apparently under the assumption that since write-in candidates are not likely to win, it hardly matters that they have not qualified a list of electors.
County librarian David Shaffer has collected the party platforms of all these parties and the Green Party, which did not qualify for the ballot in Virginia, into a loose leaf binder. Most of this information was downloaded from the Internet. The printout of party platforms is available at the public library for anyone who wishes to read it. The Democratic and Republican party platforms are also included in the binder.
The Libertarian Party has the longest platform. It calls for drastically curtailing government, reducing taxes and eliminating laws that govern private behavior.
For example the Libertarian platform calls for repeal of laws restricting the use of drugs, laws against private consensual acts of sex (such as prostitution and homosexuality), restrictions on the right to bear arms and laws regulating abortion. It also opposes the use of tax funds for abortion and almost everything else.
The Libertarian Party supports the eventual repeal of all taxation and as an interim measure calls for dropping all changes against tax evaders. "No tax
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