On July 16, the Libertarian Party of North Dakota filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, alleging that the state law requiring a minimum number of votes in a party’s primary, for that party to nominate candidates, is unconstitutional, at least as to candidates for the legislature.

North Dakota has very small legislative districts.  At this year’s primary, the only parties that had a primary were the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian Parties.  In the typical legislative district, only 2,100 voters cast a vote in any party’s primary.  The vast majority of voters who voted on June 8, 2010, chose to vote in either the Democratic or Republican primaries.  It appears that about 550 people chose to vote in the Libertarian Party primary.  Any voter was free to vote in any party’s primary; North Dakota doesn’t have voter registration and the state has an open primary.

State law requires statewide nominees to receive at least 300 votes, and all of the Libertarian Party’s statewide candidates met that requirement.  But state law requires legislative candidates to poll between 130 and 145 primary votes, and none of the three Libertarian candidates for the state legislature came anywhere close to doing that.  The case is Libertarian Party of North Dakota v Jaeger, case number not assigned yet.  North Dakota is the only state that has a minimum number of votes in order for a party to nominate candidates in its own primary (except that many states do require a minimum number of votes for write-in candidates in primaries).   Minnesota had a similar requirement, but the Minnesota Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 2004 in a case filed by the Independence Party.