Starting on May 22, North Carolina voters may now register as members of the Libertarian Party, and have those registrations tallied by elections officials. Although most voter registration forms don’t list the Libertarian Party as a choice, the forms all have a blank line, so the word “Libertarian” can be written in.

In most states with registration by party, when a party goes off the ballot, elections officials acknowledge that the party continues to have registered members. North Carolina is different. A few months after the November 2004 election, elections officials forcibly converted all the Libertarians to “independent”, unless those Libertarians chose to become Republicans or Democrats. The party thus lost over 13,000 registrants, and must start again from a baseline of zero. Even voters whose original signed voter registration form still says “Libertarian” must re-register as Libertarians.

The reason voters can now register “Libertarian” and have that tallied is because the state acknowledges that the party’s recent petition drive did succeed in gathering enough signatures. Thanks to Michael Morrison for this news.