Currently, Wisconsin has four qualified parties: Democratic, Green, Libertarian, and Republican. A party remains on the ballot if it polls 1% for any statewide race in a midterm year. This year, no Green filed for a statewide office in the Green Party primary. Also this year, no Libertarian filed for a statewide office in the Libertarian Party primary except for a candidate for Lieutenant Governor. But because Governor and Lieutenant Governor are elected on a joint ticket in November, the nomination of the Libertarian candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Terry Virgil, is a futile act. The state won’t print him on the November ballot without a gubernatorial running mate.
There are four Libertarians on the Libertarian primary ballot for state legislature, and one for U.S. House. The Greens have one candidate on their own primary ballot for the legislature, Ben Manski.
Independent candidates qualified for the November ballot for U.S. Senate, and for Governor, and for five of the eight U.S. House seats, and for quite a few legislative seats.
For a party to get back on the ballot, or for a new party to qualify, 10,000 signatures are needed. They can only be collected in the first half of an even-numbered year. Or, if an unqualified party runs a statewide candidate who gets 1% of the vote, the unqualified party becomes qualified. Wisconsin will have a U.S. Senate election in 2012, so either the Green Party or the Libertarian Party can regain their status after November 2012 if their U.S. Senate candidate, or their presidential candidate, polls 1% in 2012.
Is it too late to file?
Yes, it’s too late. The deadline was July 13.
Wisconsin allows write-ins in primaries, but no statewide write-in candidate in a primary may be nominated unless he or she polls 2,000 write-in votes. Persuading 2,000 Wisconsin voters to choose to vote in the Libertarian primary, or the Green primary, and to cast a write-in vote for a particular person would not be easy.
The lp.org does list some one for governor as well. Is that correct?
Erick Scoglio
Governor, Wisconsin
Terry Virgil
Lt. Governor, Wisconsin
There is also a Libertarian for STATE TREASURER and over 10 people running for the legislature, if I did my counting right.(both House and Senate) It appears that Erick Scoglio didn’t file for Governor.
http://gab.wi.gov/
Hello Richard,
I am mailing a check for COFOE dues and a small donation today. Keep up the fine work. Ballot Access News is interesting, timely and thorough.
Didn’t anyone in the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin know this rule? If they did know this rule, why in the heck did they not run a candidate for Governor?
What wasted opportunities!
Richard is correct. It appears the Wisconsin Gov. and State Treasurer candidate fell short of signatures collected. The Lt. Gov. candidate did well, filing over 2600 signatures.
How does an unqualified party run a statewide candidate in Wisconsin? And what other requirements or restrictions are there on such a candidate’s winning future ballot access for such a party?
Must a candidate wanting to (re-)qualify her/his party for the ballot run “independent”/NPA (with no — officially recognized party affiliation) but with the (NOT officially recognized) nomination of that unqualified party? How would the candidate and the party document the relationship, as part of proving that votes for the *candidate* showed support for the *party* — enough to get the party on the ballot next time?
It would seem that there is a petitioning process for NPA/”independent” candidates to get on the fall ballot, but is that the only way to bootstrap an unqualified (or maybe “de-qualified”) party back to qualification at the ballot box? Could a write-in candidacy in November work too/instead? (I presume that the example Richard gives in #2 would only get a primary write-in candidate with 2,000+ write-in votes on *this* November’s ballot *her-/himself* . . . though of course that would be a big step towards qualifying for 2012.)
Are President(/VP) and US Senator the only offices for which this can be done — or is it just that those are the only statewide offices up for grabs at the next opportunity, in 2012?
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Any statewide candidate, running as an independent, who polls 1%, can cause the group identified in the candidate’s ballot label to become qualified.
Wisconsin, like half the states, lets an independent candidate choose a partisan label that appears on the November ballot next to his or her name. But the candidate still appears in the independent column.
2012 only has two statewide offices up in Wisconsin, president and US Senate. That is a typical pattern. 32 states don’t have any partisan statewide races in presidential years, except president and congress.
What happened to the National LP?
Is there no longer a Libertarian National Committee?
Don’t they have a national chair?
Who is watching out to keep the LP going?
It’s not a dearth of candidates, it’s a dearth of national leadership.
Quit making fun of Drug Tzar Steve Kubby, Peace Party George Phillies, and $100T federal budget W. A. R.
They are peddling as fast as they can!
12 –
Perhaps they’re leading the party with the same reticence and inaction that Libertarians pledge to demonstrate if they win any election?