The New York Times of April 5 has this somewhat lengthy story about the Libertarian Party’s role in this year’s presidential election, with most of the focus on Gary Johnson. As noted here before, in the past, the New York Times has gone through an entire presidential election year without ever mentioning the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee, so this is a change.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Gee I wonder why?
An attempt to DIVIDE and CONQUER the Elephant forces ???
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How much of the New Age media LOVES having STATIST Donkeys in TOTAL CONTROL of everybody and everything ???
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
I noticed the NYT article repeats Johnson’s claim that the Libertarian Party will be on the ballot in all 50 states. From what I’ve read, that the party name will be on the ballot is far from certain and probably not even possible at this point. Am I wrong on that?
Dave, the Libertarian Party is currently confirmed to be on the ballot in 32 states. In 5 additional states, the process to access the ballot is now underway. The remaining states all require petitions for candidates that do not belong to ‘recognized political parties’; the Libertarian Party needs to select their candidate (this will occur at the end of May) before they begin petitioning. These states have deadlines ranging from August 1st to September 9th, and the Libertarian Party has not had trouble with them in the past, so it’s assumed that they will receive enough signatures.
So until June 1st, the Libertarian Party will only have confirmed ballot access in 37 states; the process to gain access in the remaining 13 + DC will begin then.
13 of the already-confirmed states have extraordinarily thresholds for the petitions, and the Libertarian Party has met them; California required 180,000 signatures! So a measly 15000 (the most of any of the remaining states) shouldn’t be an issue.
Many of the states in which the Libertarian Party is not now on the ballot allow stand-in candidates. Among the states in which the LP is not now on the ballot, and in which the LP expects to use a candidate petition, these states permits stand-ins: Connecticut, DC, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. However it would not be rational for the LP to be circulating the candidate petitions just yet in Maine and Ohio, because the party is hoping courts will put the party on the ballot. That is a possibility in Pennsylvania as well.
Josh and Richard,
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I thought the deadline was much earlier, which didn’t make sense to me since the candidate isn’t even selected until the convention.
Good luck with the effort. It’s good to know that the worst states are already taken care of. Also good luck with the courts. I’ve seen articles about that, but wasn’t sure of the current status.
This will maybe be the best election ever to have a libertarian alternative to the main parties.