1. New Hampshire used to allow for 3rd parties to automatically be allowed on a ballot if they recieved 3% of the previous election. Because the LP party was getting ballot access the 2 headed beast decided that the threshold should be brought up to 5% which was just enough to miss a few elections and kick the party off the ballot.

   If your not even on the ballot you will most likely not get the 5% necessary to get on another time. It is shameful to consider the USA the leader of the free world and democracy and then the elite politicians write laws that are meant to protect their own special interests and not necessarily to represent the will of the people.

   Oh and now it sounds like 2 people for the same party can be on the ballot… Definately running scared….

2. Would George step aside for Bob? My guess is that George isn’t a big fan..

3. George has been very helpful. He helped get the Massachusetts ACLU interested in this problem in Massachusetts.

   It is true the New Hampshire legislature increased the vote test. One House increased it from 3% to 5% while the Libertarians were on the ballot, but that bill failed in the other House. But in 1997, the legislature increased it from 3% to 4%, although they expanded the list of offices that counts toward party status from just Governor, to both Governor and US Senator.

4. George has alreadysaid that he would notstep aside,but that having MORE choices was better.

   But, many of the guys over at LPNH think its unlikely Barr will get on the ballot anyway. So its possible Barr will be on as little as 45-46 ballots.

5. That isn’t what George told me. Who did he say that to?

6. People,

   I have very certainly not made any statement to anyone about contingencies involving New Hampshire, other than my clear and unambiguous statement that I have accepted the LPNH nomination, I have filed the Declaration of Intent, the needed signatures were filed, and as a New Hampshire candidate I plan to campaign vigorously in New Hampshire, as I have already been doing for some time. I have personally spoken with the New Hampshire Secretary of State, and the representation I have is that if other Libertarian Presidential candidates have filed their declaration of intent and collect the needed signatures they will also be listed on the Libertarian line.

   Rumors of a lawsuit in New Hampshire seem confused. The only people with obvious standing to sue would be me or the LPNH, because I by vote of their convention am their candidate. Rumors of “the party” suing without specifying which party is suing, state or national, are not obviously easy to understand.

7. In 1996, when Florida was denying substitution, that hurt both the Reform Party and the Libertarian Party. The federal complaint (filed by both parties, together) listed the Ross Perot Reform Committee as the lead plaintiff. By that analogy, it would make sense that the first-named plaintiff in any New Hampshire substitution lawsuit this year would be Bob Barr, or Barr’s campaign committee.

8. George, you are doing great damage to the Libertarian Party, and even more so to your reputation. I’ve respected you in the past. You’ve been quixotic and have had an independent streak. That was to be admired. Now, with this move, you’ve destroyed any previous credibility you’ve had. I’m am deeply sorry to hear that you have made this move. Very bad. Very bad indeed.

9. As the LP Political Director, we were aware this would happen and it doesn’t keep us from placing Barr/Root on the NH ballot.

   In NH, the statewide petition carries the names of all their candidates for state and federal office. The LPNH wisely started petitioning last year to get all these candidates on the ballot, as well as Dr. Phillies as our stand-in for President. We supported this petition for the sake of these other candidates. The LPNH has done a great job in completing this petition on their own and has been a pleasure to work with in this and all related matters. The LPNH has acted in good faith all along and did what they needed to do to protect and advance the interests of both the state and national party.

   Now we will have to conduct a second petition for Barr/Root, which I fully expect to be successful. The silver lining to having to do this is the LPNH has the ability to name even more candidates and get them on the ballot as well. I expect petitioning will start next week and the LNC will be sending in professional petitioners to work the local dumps, DMVs, utility payment centers and other places in NH where the cars in the parking lots actually have a majority of NH license plates on them.

   We are still considering the legal options over substitution. As to what form any lawsuit might take, I can’t say for now. But I can say this – the legal issue is over the substitution process itself in NH. The personalities involved are irrelevant in this analysis.

10. Sean Haugh’s commenting here is inappropriate and against the LP’s policy.

    Quote from the LP’s acting executive director Robert Kraus On June 10: “We have a policy of not posting to
    outside blogs”.

    A better way to have addressed these concerns would have been to write to Richard Winger and let him convey the information.

11. Sean says:
    “I expect petitioning will start next week and the LNC will be sending in professional petitioners to work the local dumps, DMVs, utility payment centers and other places in NH where the cars in the parking lots actually have a majority of NH license plates on them.”

    I wish them much luck… if only it was that easy. Speaking as someone who lives in NH, and actually collected petitions, and realizes just how hard this goal is, which is why we started _last_ year, and only finished it recently:

    1) Dumps are a good place… on Saturdays.

    However: http://www.sos.nh.gov/spfile.htm
    makes clear the deadline time is Aug6th to submit the petitions… meaning that between now and Aug6th, there are what – 6-8 weekends?

    2) While we have DMVs, most of the bulk of this is handled locally at town halls. Unlike many states, our DMVs aren’t very high traffic.

    3) It’s not just 3000, but 1500 from each of 2 districts, and voters must know not just their town in many cases, but their ward/polling place, since the process is NOT centralized, but sent to each town clerk, who will not ‘find’ the person if it’s wrong, and reject it as valid.

    Those who think this is an easy task to collect a mere 3000 sigs don’t understand that the biggest city in NH, Manchester is still only 100,000 people.

    We collected during all of the “high traffic” days like Primaries and Election days… because we know how hard this task is, and hat’s why we started a year early.

12. I keep repeating that no lawsuit over presidential or vice-presidential substitution has ever lost in court. We are free to sue New Hampshire over substitution, so even if the New Hampshire Barr petition fails, we still have a good chance to have Barr on in New Hampshire. We have a very experienced ballot access attorney who is willing to do the case, if the ACLU won’t do it. We are waiting for the Massachusetts ACLU to file the Massachusetts substitution lawsuit first.

13. This is why the Libertarian party will never succeed. As a Libertarian leaning Republican who wished he could find a new party to join, this is very depressing. If you can’t even select one Presidential candidate, how can we take the party seriously? Where’s the party unity? The comments on this page should have been an internal matter. Showing it to the public further damages the Libertarian party, and any credibility that they had left.

14. I am a die hard New Hampshire libertarian, but am outraged that the LPNH would put George Phillies on the ballot instead of Barr. If Nov 2nd comes with only Phillies on the ballot I may never vote LP again. What a joke this “Party” is. The LP finally nominates a candidate who stands a chance and is already polling in the double digits, and then some of its members try and sabbatoge him because he wasn’t always libertarian. How does the LP expect to attract people to the libertarian cause when all they do is allienate those who are on their way over?

15. It would be exciting to see Phillies campaign in NH and out-perform Barr. Delightful that there is a libertarian LP candidate on the ballot.

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