From the election results page at LP.org, here is a list of candidates who kept their state parties on the ballot and how many votes they got:
David Herbert Wyoming US House 11,028 4.9%
Nathan Santucci Nevada State Assembly District 22 14,930 22.3%
Stan Jones Montana Governor 8,698 3.1%
William Bryan Strange, III Texas Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals Place 9 1,041,499 18.1%
Robert Underwood Massachusetts United States Senate 94,745 3.2%
(Mass. state chair George Phillies reports that party status is actually a detriment to Libertarians in that state, due to quirks in state law).
Michael Munger North Carolina Governor 120,594 2.9%
Randall Hodgkinson – US Senate candidate in Kansas kept our ballot access with 2.1% of the vote (24,946 unofficial total)
** or as above puts it – list of candidates who kept their state parties on the ballot**
In Kansas we have the major/minor party rules and we kept “minor” party access to the ballot.
In Kansas the only time we get a shot at “Major” party status is every 4 years in the Governor race only & we need 5% there to qualify as a major party. Next time available to us 2010. Hopefully we will have a good candidate for that effort.
The Working Families Party of Massachusetts also lost ballot access this month. It is the first and only time that any state unit of the Working Families Party lost qualified status.
Okay, into the void of ennui for me.
Yes.
Wait a minute, did the Green Party of Massachusetts lose ballot access this election cycle?
One reason the party became less active after 2002 was that everyone was exhausted from all the petitioning to get our people on the Libertarian primary ballot. I completely agree with George that the primary ballot access laws are outrageous. Where he and I part is that I am gung-ho in favor of a lawsuit to change that, and for some reason he won’t even discuss it. I thought that since we won another constitutional ballot access case against Massachusetts this year, that would make him more interested in lawsuits. He helped hugely in that case; he was highly involved since it was an ACLU case and he is on the ACLU board.
Richard, I think the fact that the Massachusetts LP had more candidates on the ballot in 2002 when they major party status than in 2006 when they did not have major party status had more to do with the fact that the party became less active during that time period than it had anything to do with whether or not they had major party status and what the petition requirements were.
Andy is right, except that even unqualified parties must have separate petitions for each of their district candidates. In 2006, when we were not a qualified party in Massachusetts (a situation George prefers) we had no statewide candidates on the November ballot, no US House candidates, no State Senate candidates, and two candidates on for State House, Robert Underwood and Raymond Leary.
By contrast, in 2002, a year in which we were a qualified party in Massachusetts, we had four statewide nominees on the November ballot (one of whom, Michael Cloud, polled 18.5% for US Senate), one on for US House, one on for State Senate, and 13 on for State House. Granted, it was a whale of a lot of work getting all our members on our own primary ballot, but we can win a lawsuit against those requirements.
Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that in Massachusetts if a party gets “major party” status (that is the same status as the Democrats and Republicans), that the party then has to do seperate petitions for each of its candidates (as in each candidate has to be listed on a seperate petition sheet) and that the signers of that petition have to be either people who registered to vote under that parties banner or people who are registered unenrolled (as in with no political party), which means that people who are registered as Democrats, Republicans, Greens, or anything else can’t sign a petition to put a Libertarian candidate on the ballot.. These factors make ballot access petitioning more difficult than it is otherwise.
If a party does not have “major party” status they can stack multiple candidates on the same petition sheet (at least statewide candidates, I’m not sure about candidates for US House or state legislature or other lower offices) and anyone who is a registered voter is eligible to sign the petition.
If this is correct, I can see George’s arguement for not wanting major party status in Massachusetts.
Presidential primary ballot access in Massachusetts is extremely easy. The state chair just writes a letter to the Secretary of State and tells the Secretary of State whom to list on the party’s presidential primary ballot.
In 2008, the Green Party was a qualified party in Massachusetts, and the Green Party had a presidential primary with Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Kat Swift, Jared Ball, Kent Mesplay, and Elaine Brown all on its primary ballot. The candidates didn’t need to lift a finger to get on that ballot.
In 2004, the Libertarian Party had its own presidential primary in Massachusetts. Gary Nolan, Aaron Russo, Michael Badnarik, Jeffrey Diket, and Dave Hollist were on the ballot.
George, I hope you comment again, and explain why you don’t acknowledge the idea of winning a lawsuit against the Massachusetts petition requirements for candidates to get on their own party’s primary ballots.
Also, if you put your party on the ballot in Massachusetts as a major party, you must get candidates past the primary, which is not necessarily a trivial exercise.
“(2) the party has its own presidential primary, with very easy ballot access for any candidate who runs in that presidential primary;”
That’s completely false, Richard.
In fact, the primary ballot access rules in Massachusetts, the ones the Democratic and Republican parties follow for their primary, are more challenging than the rules that Party Designations (minor parties) must follow to put candidates on the general election ballot. In fact, the major party rules here are so difficult that the *Republican* party machine, having chosen a candidate for U.S> Senate, failed to put him on the primary ballot.
Mr. Winger’s claim “(4) the party enjoys more prestige.” is representative of the cargo-cult mentality that has held our party back here for the past decade.
Mr. Winger’s definition of qualified party is, in my opinion, nonsense.
You are a qualified party when you can run people for office under your own party’s name.
We were already qualified.
Hopefully the BTP can get on the ballot someday in Michigan. Once you get on the Michigan ballot, its almost impossible to lose the access.
Wow, they didn’t even mention Michigan, where all of our Statewide candidates had enough votes to retain our ballot status here.
The Georgia law on how a party remains on the ballot for statewide office is fairly easy; a vote of 1% of the number of registered voters does it. We always meet that requirement with ease. There is nothing to be gained by Monds having polled 33%.
But we are not a qualified party in Georgia for district and county office until we poll 20% of the vote for president in the entire U.S., or 20% for Governor of Georgia. So legally, we have never had any change in Georgia since 1988, when we first won qualified status for statewide office.
What about Monds and Buckley in GA?
The intent of this post is to show in which states the Libertarian Party kept or gained its status as a “qualified party”. A “qualified party”, as most define it, is a party which enjoys the same ballot access rules that the Republican and Democratic Parties enjoy. Because the Massachusetts Libertarian Party now has this status, and it didn’t during the period November 2004-November 2008, the post is correct.
George feels the Massachusetts Libertarian Party is better off when it is not a qualified party. The advantages of being a qualified party in Massachusetts are: (1) the party is listed as a choice on voter registration forms; (2) the party has its own presidential primary, with very easy ballot access for any candidate who runs in that presidential primary; (3) the party places its presidential nominee on the November ballot with no petition; (4) the party enjoys more prestige. The Libertarian Party is now the only ballot-qualified party in Massachusetts, besides the two major parties.
The disadvantages of being a qualified party are that Massachusetts makes it so difficult for the members of an unqualified party to get on their own party’s primary ballot. This can be overcome in court. George knows we do sometimes win constitutional ballot access cases, even in Massachusetts, because the LP won such a lawsuit this year and he helped win it. But, when I mentioned the possibility of a new lawsuit to make it easier for Massachusetts Libertarians to get on the Libertarian primary ballot, he said that since I don’t live in Massachusetts he would not listen to me. Then he hung up the phone.
As was also true all the other times it was made, the statement — and I am not blaming you for making it, Paulie, because you are correctly reporting a claim of the LNC — that Bob Underwood “kept [his] state part[y] on the ballot ” is *a flat-out lie by the LNC*.
We’ve been on the ballot for decades. My good friend Bob Underwood’s ballot performance has no effect on whether or not you find the word “Libertarian” under someone’s name when they run for office.