Although the Natural Law Party dissolved itself nationally in 2004, it continues to be ballot-qualified in Michigan and Mississippi. In Michigan, a party remains ballot-qualified as long as it polls enough votes for any statewide race. The Natural Law Party of Michigan wishes to maintain its qualified status, so this year it is running two statewide candidates, one for State Board of Education, and one for another statewide educational post. Michigan is the only state with any Natural Law Party candidates this year.
In Ottawa County, the initial printing of absentee ballots accidentally omitted the two Natural Law Party nominees. See this story. The county noticed the error and reprinted all its absentee ballots, which cost almost $50,000.
NO proof reading of the ballots by 2 or more election bureaucrats ???
Little mental radar blipping on non Democan and non Republicrat labels by election bureaucrats!
Oh, the Natural Law Party, April First, 2004! Separately, Richard Winger (San Francisco), Phil Sawyer (Sacramento County), and Don Lake (Sandy Ego County) actively lobbied for alternative parties to inhabit the shell of various state NLP organizations. Such a waste!
In Michigan, each of the 83 County Clerks is required by law to mail a proof copy of the ballot to each candidate listed, so the candidate can review it for accuracy. Needless to say, that doesn’t help if they failed to print the candidate’s name in the first place, so they don’t send a copy of the ballot to the missing candidate. This year, I reviewed all 83 ballots for the Libertarian Party and discovered: (1) the LP candidate for Attorney General was omitted from three County ballots; (2) two Counties misspelled a statewide LP candidate’s name; (3) one County showed an LP candidate running in the wrong district; and (4) one County showed an LP candidate as running for the wrong party. All the County Clerks I called were thankful for the help in identifying errors before the ballots were printed.