Ohio law permits candidates who get on the November ballot by petition to choose one of two labels, “other-party candidate” or “no-party candidate”. This law, passed in 2002, was opposed by the Secretary of State. Since then, the Secretary of State has used every trick at his command to thwart the law.

This year, there are two minor party candidates on the ballot for Ohio governor, Bob Fitrakis of the Green Party, and Bill Peirce of the Libertarian Party. Both of them have been denied the ability to have “other-party candidate” on the November ballot. This is because, when each turned in his petition, neither volunteered that they desired “other-party candidate” at that moment. No one asked them. Later, when they requested it, the Secretary of State said that since they didn’t ask for it at the moment they turned in their signatures, they will have no label at all.

In November 2004, the two petitioning presidential candidates, Michael Badnarik and Michael Peroutka, did know that they needed to volunteer their choice of a label, and each did have “other-party candidate” printed on the November ballot. However, when the Secretary of State printed his book of official election returns, called “Ohio Election Statistics 2004”, he omitted the label for each of them.