Third parties and independent candidates since 2008


Root: The Strike – As Ayn Rand Predicted

June 29th, 2011 · 61 Comments

“…revenues are down dramatically. Coincidence?

Everything happening today under Obama resembles the storyline of Ayn Rand’s famous book, Atlas Shrugged…”

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Tags: Libertarian Party

North Carolina Ballot Access Bill Passes House

June 8th, 2011 · No Comments

As reported at Ballot Access News: On June 7, the North Carolina House passed HB 32, which –if ultimately passed — would lower the number of signatures for previously unqualified parties, and independent candidates. The bill includes lowering some signature requirements from 85,000 currently, to 18,000 for 2012.

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Tags: Independents · Third parties, general

Daren Bakst: Ballot access laws undermine the right to vote

March 20th, 2011 · No Comments

From an opinion article by Daren Bakst in the Beaufort Observer: When you go to the polls in North Carolina, you have less freedom to choose who you want to elect than citizens of virtually every other state. A recent North Carolina Supreme Court decision (Libertarian Party et. al. v. North Carolina et. al.) will [...]

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Tags: Libertarian Party

Editorial by Greensboro NC News & Record: Ballot Access Too Strict

March 18th, 2011 · 4 Comments

From an editorial by the News & Record, of Greensboro NC: Voters deserve choices at the polls, but not too many, the N.C. Supreme Court said in a disappointing ruling last week. The 5-1 decision denied the state Libertarian Party’s challenge to North Carolina’s strict ballot-access law. Oh, but the law isn’t really so strict, [...]

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Tags: Libertarian Party

Brian Irving: NC Libertarians respond to NC Ballot Access Decision

March 17th, 2011 · 1 Comment

March 16, 2011 By Brian Irving The N.C. Supreme Court has upheld the state laws that give North Carolina the second most restrictive ballot access requirements in the nation. The justices ruled 5-1 that they were “not persuaded” that ballot access is a “fundamental right.” “Indeed, ballot access rights, though distinct from voting rights, are [...]

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Tags: Green Party · Libertarian Party · Third parties, general

North Carolina Supreme Court Upholds 2% Petition Requirement for Ballot Access for Alternative Parties

March 13th, 2011 · 4 Comments

Ballot Access News: On March 11, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled 5-1 that the petition to put a new political party on the ballot, 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, does not violate the State Constitution. Here is the 17-page opinion, and the 9-page dissent. For 2012, the law requires 85,379 signatures. Except in [...]

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Tags: Third parties, general

Thomas Hill: The libertarian message is peace – be it and live it

February 23rd, 2011 · 32 Comments

by Thomas Hill BURNET, Texas (Feb. 23) – Since I signed on as the campaign manager of the Lee Wrights for President Exploratory Committee I’ve taken some heat from some of my radical and anarchist friends in the libertarian movement, people I love and respect, for getting involved in electoral politics. Some of them have [...]

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Tags: Libertarian Party

NC: Groups form Free the Vote Coalition for election law reform

February 8th, 2011 · 3 Comments

via contact.ipr@gmail.com: CHARLOTTE (Feb. 2) – Free the Vote North Carolina announced yesterday the formation of the Free the Vote Coalition, an alliance of the state’s alternative political parties and several electoral reform groups, who have banded together to enact major ballot access reform this year. Rep. Stephen LaRoque will file the Electoral Freedom Act [...]

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Tags: Constitution Party · Green Party · Independents · Libertarian Party · Non-left/right parties · Right-wing minor parties · Third parties, general

Richard Winger of Ballot Access News: IndependentVoting.org is ‘a pressure group working to limit choices on the general election ballot’

December 30th, 2010 · 5 Comments

In over a century of struggle to avoid monopolization of the general election ballot to just the two major parties, there has never been a pressure group that worked in favor of restrictive ballot access laws, until very recently. Leaders of the former New Alliance Party, who have renamed themselves several times, now call themselves IndependentVoting.org. They hold themselves out as the leaders of independent voters, but they have become a pressure group working to limit choices on the general election ballot to just Democrats and Republicans.

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Tags: Libertarian Party · Proposition 14 · Third parties, general

R. Lee Wrights: ‘One million American voted Libertarian’

November 9th, 2010 · 3 Comments

Press release from the Wrights for President exploratory committee emailed to contact.ipr@gmail.com: BURNET, Texas (Nov. 9) – The most significant impact of the 2010 elections is neither a mandate for the Republican Party, nor a rejection of the Obama Administration, but in the continued growth of the Libertarian vote at the local, state and national [...]

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Tags: Libertarian Party

More states elected independents to state legislatures this year than in any previous year in at least sixty years

November 9th, 2010 · 7 Comments

Ballot Access News reports: Thanks very much to Morgan Daybell for helping me find instances at which independent legislators were elected or re-elected last week. It appears that independents were elected to state legislators in 2010 in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Vermont. We are still waiting to [...]

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Tags: Independents

North Carolina Libertarians ‘Bloody But Unbowed’

November 5th, 2010 · 12 Comments

Liberty Point: Libertarian candidates consider election defeats a learning experience, prepare for the next election. Although the results of the 2010 election were a disappointment for North Carolina’s Libertarian candidates because they were not elected, several consider it a very good learning experience and preparation for future campaigns. Dr. Mike Beitler, Libertarian candidate for U.S. [...]

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Tags: Libertarian Party