The Indiana Libertarian Party nominated approximately 70 candidates for public office this year. The party is ballot-qualified and nominates by convention. Twelve of these nominees will probably not appear on the November ballot. They include the party’s nominee for State Auditor, two U.S. House candidates, and 9 state legislative nominees.
One law requires parties to fill vacancies by June 30. The party followed that law. But another law (that applies only to qualified parties that don’t use a primary) requires a party that intends to fill vacancies, to file another notice 10 days earlier, saying that it intends to fill vacancies. The party had not known about that law. The law had not been enforced in the past, but a new law removes the discretion of state elections officials to overlook it.
As Tom Delay recently learned, it is illegal for a state to add additional qualifications for federal office to those mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Therefore these paperwork snafus are certainly unconstitutional if they are construed as adding additional qualifications for candidates for the U.S. House or Senate.
Sounds like a law that is only meant to keep minor parties off the ballot.
I remember when I turned in my Texas Libertarian Convention Results (either country or state senate district) to our SOS Office, (one of our State Party people was there also was there) and we chatted a bit with the SOS elections official.
She (?) told us that had a candidate won in the convention and we failed to get the paperwork in on time, the candidate still had to be on the ballot, b/c of a lawsuit about this a judge had ruled that the candidates (who had won the nomination) could not be punished for the failure of the Convention chair.
I’m not sure if this was a state court judge or federal (i.e. the scope), or even if it applies, but it might be a useful piece of information for a litigator to look at.
James,, that case would be useful, could you find out more.
My client Joell Palmer was one of the candidates struck from the ballot.
He intends to continue running, even if his votes are never counted.
Litigation is possible.
Donations for the court costs are welcome (and can be returned if nobody sues.. right now I’m just gathering information. gtbear at gmail.