On October 21, a lower New York state court ruled that the Libertarian nominees, not the Socialist Workers Party nominees, should have the sixth line on the New York city ballot next month. The law provides that the qualified parties get the left-hand columns. New York has five qualified parties, so they fill up the 5 left-most columns.

The unqualified parties get the remaining columns, in the order in which they turn in their petitions. The Libertarians had turned in a petition for one nominee (for an office covering just part of New York city), earlier than any other unqualified party had turned in any petitions.

The Socialist Workers Party had filed next, for all of its nominees. Then, the Libertarians had turned in their remaining petitions, including the petition for the city-wide nominees. The City Board of Elections gave the sixth column to the Socialist Workers Party and the seventh column to the Libertarian Party. But the court reversed the decision. The law says the parties are listed in the order in which “the first candidate” of a group filed, not “the first candidate for Mayor”. The court applied these words literally.