The Libertarian Party’s lawsuit to get Bob Barr on the Connecticut ballot has oral arguments on Thursday, October 23, at 11 a.m. in federal court in Bridgeport. The case is Libertarian Party of Connecticut v Bysiewicz, 3:08-cv-1513, before Judge Janet Hall. This is the first in-person hearing the case has had, even though the attorneys and the judge had previously held a status conference on the phone. It would be helpful if people who are interested in this case would attend. The U.S. Courthouse is at 915 Lafayette Boulevard in Bridgeport.

The Libertarian Party submitted enough valid signatures on the deadline, but the state says that (1) it is too late to reprint all the ballots; (2) the lawsuit is barred by the Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Eleventh Amendment says people cannot sue states in federal courts. People always get around it by suing state officials, rather than the state itself. The Eleventh Amendment argument has never worked to defeat a ballot access lawsuit, in any state, ever.

The only reason that Barr isn’t already on the ballot in Connecticut is because some town clerks did a poor job of checking signatures, and invalidated signatures that were valid.

On October 25, 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court forced Cook County, Illinois, to reprint 3,000,000 ballots, because the Court felt that elections officials had erred by leaving the Harold Washington Party off the ballot. Also in 1990, Minnesota reprinted all its in-precinct ballots only a week before the general election, because the Republican nominee for Governor had resigned from the ticket and been replaced by another Republican nominee.