William Galvin has been Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since 1994. During his earlier years in office, he permitted independent presidential candidates to list stand-ins for vice-president on their general election petitions, in instances when those presidential candidates hadn’t yet chosen their vice-presidential running mates. He also allowed presidential and vice-presidential substitution for unqualified parties who wanted to petition before they had chosen their national tickets.

In 2004 he let Ralph Nader use a vice-presidential stand-in. In 2000 he let the Reform Party uses stand-ins. In 1996 he let the Constitution Party use stand-ins. A previous Secretary had permitted John B. Anderson to use a vice-presidential stand-in in 1980.

But in 2008, he refused to let the Libertarian Party use stand-ins. The party sued and won in U.S. District Court, but after the election was over, the First Circuit reversed, in a decision that didn’t even mention all of the older precedents that say stand-ins must be permitted. The earlier, favorable precedents were based on equal protection. Because every state permits qualified parties to substitute, other courts had reasoned that states must permit everyone to substitute. For example, in 1972 all the states let the Democratic Party replace vice-presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton with Sargent Shriver.

Unfortunately, on August 13, Galvin reiterated that he will not allow substitution. The Libertarian Party had asked for a better policy, because the party won’t know who its national ticket is until the end of May, and it would like to petition before then. It is conceivable that the state legislature might amend the existing law to allow presidential substitution, or at least vice-presidential substitution, but of course someone in Massachusetts would need to expend some energy looking for a legislative sponsor.