On April 15, a New Mexico state trial court rejected a challenge to the ballot position of Chris Manning, Libertarian nominee for U.S. House, special election of June 1. See this story. The challenger says there will be an appeal.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
If they didn’t get 5% for governor or president why should they be on the ballot?
The law does not require major parties to have polled 5% for president or governor. The law, section 7-1-1-, says the party only needs to have had “any” candidate poll votes equal to 5% of the last gubernatorial or presidential vote. The story misses this point. The Libertarian Party got over 5% of the 2020 presidential vote, in 2020, for a statewide partisan judicial race.
Which statewide judicial election in 2020 was it? From the results I can find the Libertarians only ran a Senate candidate, other than Jorgensen, for statewide.
https://www.koat.com/article/2020-election-results-judicial-and-judicial-retention-results/34363492#
Stephen Curtis was the Libertarian nominee for Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals. He got 62,547 votes in November 2020. 5% of the November 2020 vote for president works out to 46,190 votes, so he easily met that vote test.
What was the motivation for Ginger Grider and James Clayton to sue?
Blair Dunn’s motivation here is obvious – his father is running as an independent in the same election.
Apparently there was an effort to get the Libertarian Party to endorse Aubrey Dunn.
Aubrey Dunn was the Libertarian US Senate candidate in 2018, having changed from Republican to Libertarian shortly before running. Blair Dunn was the Libertarian AG candidate in 2018. Ginger Grider a plaintiff was the Libertarian SOS candidate in 2018. Griter was a registered Republican until 2016 when she switched to support Gary Johnson, though her husband had been a Libertarian for 25 years.
Chris Manning is the Libertarian Party State Treasurer.
@RW,
The article claimed to be citing the decision,
Though if it accurate that the plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the major party status, it would seem to block the remainder of their lawsuit.
It would be interesting to see the actual decision. The case is online, but none of the documents.
Remove all rightist splinters and win