On February 24, the First Circuit ruled against the New Hampshire Libertarian Party, in the lawsuit that has been pending since 2008. The issues were whether a party has a constitutional right to protect its name, and whether it has a constitutional right to use a stand-in presidential candidate on its petition. Here is the 26-page opinion.
In 2008, the New Hampshire general election ballot carried two presidential candidates, both of whom had their names in the independent column, and both of whom had “Libertarian” next to their names. The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire had sued, asking that only Bob Barr be labeled as “Libertarian”. The First Circuit says parties have no exclusive right to their name, and anyone is free to appear on the general election ballot with any party label he or she desires, even if the party label is the name of a qualified party. The First Circuit interpreted New Hampshire law to mean that anyone can submit an independent candidate petition and be placed on the November ballot as “Republican” or “Democratic”, even if that person is not registered in that party and did not run in that party’s primary (however, a primary loser would not be able to qualify for the November ballot as an independent).
Because the First Circuit interpreted New Hampshire law not to protect a party’s ability to limit its name to people actually nominated by that party, and because even the Republican and Democratic Parties cannot protect their names, there is no equal protection issue.
The First Circuit did not mention cases that the Libertarian Party had cited, which say that parties and even independent campaigns do have a First Amendment right to protect their name. These cases are Curry v Kennelly, a U.S. District Court decision from Connecticut that gave independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson exclusive right to the ballot label “Anderson Coalition”; and a 10th circuit decision, Baer v Meyer, which said that unqualified parties can protect their name from use by non-members.
The First Circuit also believed New Hampshire state officials, when they said in an affidavit that if an unqualified party submits a petition signed by a number of voters equal to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, it gets its own party column. If a party has its own party column, that is clue to the voter that the candidate listed in the party column is really the nominee of the party, notwithstanding any competing candidates in the independent column who also use the party’s label. However, the only time in history that any unqualified party ever submitted a petition signed by 3% of the last gubernatorial vote was in 2000, when the Libertarian Party completed that petition. In 2000, the Libertarian Party was not given its own party column. The Libertarian Party’s brief pointed this out, but the First Circuit ignored that information. One presumes that in the future, the New Hampshire Secretary of State will honor his promise that groups that do the difficult party-petition do get their own party column.
nooo!
oh, this is NOT good!
One more giant mess regarding — Separate is NOT equal.
Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954
Since when any more do the party hacks even advertise the party hack names in TV ads and signs ???
P.R. and App.V. — equal nominating petitions.
Any *Sane* party labels versus the growing insane stuff in elections ???
Most rational States have *assumed names* laws for private groups, businesses, etc. — i.e. fictional *persons*.
See the NH elections website for the label chaos involved in the 400 member NH House of Reps — a MAJOR mob scene in a State regime — due to history stuff in 1775-1776.
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Again – ballot access stuff by candidates/electors is PUBLIC business.
Will the NH party hacks change the MORON laws involved ???
Stay tuned — in this strange New Age of more and more EVIL INSANE MORON stuff in governments.
Note the many parts of the NH system that the LP NH did NOT challenge.
When will any third party or independent get a ballot access so-called lawyer with ANY brains ???
The Donkeys/Elephants are the ENEMIES of 3rd parties and independents — and must be treated as such in court cases by the lawyers for third parties and independents.
P.R. and App.V. — since such lawyers are SOOOOOOOOO stupid and NOT knowing what they are doing in filing complaints and doing appeals.
If this interests you, please go to http://www.freestateproject.org for further information about the Libertarian Party, related parties, and New Hampshire. A vast political migration could result in Balkanization of a New England state. This could create critical mass for the benefit of improved freedom.
#6, it is ironic that New Hampshire has lots of freedom-loving activists, and yet New Hampshire is in many ways the least free state in New England for voters. New Hampshire is one of only 3 states in which only the Democratic and Republican Parties have been ballot-qualified, for the entire period 1997 to the present. The other two such states are New Jersey and Pennsylvania (also, in Georgia, the only qualified third parties have only been ballot-qualified only for statewide office, not district office).
New Hampshire is one of the few states in the nation that won’t let people register into an unqualified party (a New Hampshire voter can write in any party on the voter registration form, but the government classifies them as independents and won’t acknowledge that there are any voters who aren’t Dem, Rep and independent).
New Hampshire is one of only 4 states that won’t permit stand-ins on a presidential petition (the others are Maine, Alabama, South Dakota, and in Massachusetts it depends on the whim of the Secretary of State).
New Hampshire is the only state that expects the presidential nominee of an unqualified party to file a piece of paper in June, or he or she can’t be listed in November. This robs unqualified parties of the ability to choose a presidential nominee in July or August.
Why don’t all those liberty-loving activists raise a fuss? If New Hampshire is going to continue to insist that it has a moral right to hold the nation’s earliest presidential primary, then New Hampshire needs to show the nation that is especially protective of voting rights. But, the opposite is the case.
Perhaps BAN should have a least EVIL to most EVIL worst rank order list of the States regarding ballot access for 3rd parties and independents ???
See the various rank order lists regarding tyranny regimes in the world.
Perhaps try and get the U.N. to take notice — see the U.N. stuff about Libya today.
The real question is how come and why has the Secretary of State been elected every two years for nearly 30 years by the two party legislature? Just a question.
The election laws in this country are insane!
This country needs a pro democracy movement.