On June 6, the Ohio Libertarian Party filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Ohio Secretary of State, alleging that the party is a qualified party and should have its nominees for president, vice-president, Congress and state legislature placed on the November ballot. Libertarian Party of Ohio v Brunner, 08-391. The old law on how a new party gets on the ballot was struck down in 2006 and the legislature still hasn’t written a new law. The party took matters into its own hands and filed a petition of 6,500 signatures in early March 2008, and a list of its nominees (who had been nominated by convention).

The Secretary of State had created a new ballot access procedure, which was 20,114 signatures by November 2007. The Libertarian Party makes three arguments: (1) it has shown a modicum of support; (2) in the absense of a valid statutory procedure for new party recognition, the state cannot keep a party with a modicum of support off the ballot; (3) even if the Secretary of State did have authority to create a new ballot access hurdle, the hurdle she chose is also unconstitutional. No reported court decision has ever upheld a petition deadline for a new party that is earlier than April of an election year. The party was careful to submit its signatures before the Ohio March primary in any event.