On June 25, the Michigan Libertarian Party filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Detroit, seeking an order requiring the Michigan Secretary of State, Ruth Johnson, to list Gary Johnson on the ballot as the Libertarian presidential nominee. The case is Libertarian Party of Michigan v Johnson, 2:12-cv-12782-PDB. Here is the 9-page complaint.
The Secretary of State said on May 3 that she would not print Johnson’s name on the November ballot because his name had appeared on the Republican presidential primary ballot in February this year. Johnson had tried to withdraw but the Secretary of State says his withdrawal was received three minutes too late. There are very few precedents for a case like this, because no state has ever before told a ballot-qualified party that it will not list its actual presidential nominee on the grounds that the actual presidential nominee had run in the presidential primary of some other party. The only exception is that North Carolina tried to prevent John B. Anderson from appearing on the November 1980 ballot as the nominee of the Independent Party, on the grounds that his name had been on the 1980 Republican presidential primary in that state. But a U.S. District Court construed the North Carolina law to not be a barrier to Anderson. The state had then dropped any appeal, but the Democratic National Committee had intervened in the case and appealed to the 4th circuit. However, the 4th circuit also construed the North Carolina law to not apply to Anderson.
Presidential candidates who have run in a major party presidential primary, and then later appeared on the general election ballot as the nominee of a new or minor party that same year, besides Anderson, include Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Robert La Follette in 1924, and David Duke in 1988. Anderson appeared on the November ballot of all 50 states in 1980, even though he had run in 22 Republican presidential primaries that year. One of the 22 Republican presidential primaries Anderson had run in was Michigan’s primary, but Michigan did not try to bar him from the November ballot.
Thanks for posting about this. I hope this issue receives national attention. Gov. Johnson is a presidential candidate from a major political party and there isn’t any reason to exclude him from being a person’s choice!
“ Johnson had tried to withdraw but the Secretary of State says his withdrawal was received three minutes too late.” You got to be kidding me! What a nasty, petty thing to do to refuse to put Gary Johnson on the ballot as the Libertarian candidate. Then again, Ruth Johnson is a Republican. Could that have anything to do with her decision? Is she afraid of the momentum gaining behind Gary Johnson’s campaign? Does she think a third party candidate will sap votes away from Romney?
Better alarm clocks ???
NOT waiting until the last second to do BASIC stuff — esp. by laid back anarchistic LAZY LP folks ???
ALL sorts of cases about missing deadlines in court cases — statutes of limitations, court rules, etc.
Ballot access has been one more WAR activity since 1968 and the moron Williams v. Rhodes case in SCOTUS.
Clueless amateurs will get wiped out — and perhaps learn something.
Deadlines is besides the point.
By every precedent and logic Johnson should be on the ballot, regardless of whatever a vindictive Republican shrew tries to pull from her nether regions.
Gary Johnson needs to be on the ballot.
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