The Massachusetts petition for the Libertarian national ticket has enough valid signatures. Massachusetts requires 10,000 signatures. The Libertarian petition had 12,587 valid signatures. President and vice-president are the only statewide offices up this year in Massachusetts. If Gary Johnson gets at least 3% of the vote in November, the Libertarian Party will again be ballot-qualified in Massachusetts. It last had that status from November 2008 to November 2010. Thanks to Bill Redpath for this news.
Thanks for passing this along. I saw a picture of the receipt they got from the state. It said “On Ballot unless notified otherwise” (or words to that effect). Is this a done deal? I am a bit concerned that they are only 25% above the state minimum requirement. Any chance that any of the signatures could be invalidated.
I saw that they were turning in signatures yesterday and that they were also said to be on the ballot yesterday. It surprised me that they said they were good to go on the same day they turned in and didn’t need a little time to count.
In New England states, petitioning groups turn in their signatures to town clerks, who check the validity. Then the campaigns must pick up the petitions from the town clerks, with the accompanying documents on validity, and turn in everything to the Secretary of State. So all the Secretary of State must do is add up the results from each of the town clerks. That is why the state can make a determination only a few hours after the petitions arrive in the Secretary of State’s office.
Even though the Secretary of Commonwealth, Bill Galvin, has publicly said that a vote for a third party candidate is a wasted vote, he’s not so unfair as to go after any party. The Green Party is already on. I don’t think anyone will challenge the Libertarian petitions.