On July 20, U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell refused to enjoin the new Arizona law that requires a very large number of write-ins in the primary of a small qualified party, in order for those candidates to be considered nominated. He did not decide the constitutionality of the new law. He said he needs more evidence. Ironically, if the Arizona Libertarian primary results in a complete failure of any Libertarian to receive enough write-in votes to be nominated, that is the sort of evidence that might eventually win the case. The primary is August 30. The case is Libertarian Party of Arizona v Reagan, 2:16cv-1019.
Today at 5 p.m. is the deadline for write-in candidates to file. The Arizona Libertarian Party has put out a call on its websites for all party members to run as write-in candidates. http://azlp.org/blogs/view.php?id=44
Anyone can also change their registration online and become a member of any party. https://servicearizona.com/webapp/evoter/selectLanguage
The Green Party write-in candidates, unlike the Libertarian Party write-in candidates, need only a plurality of the votes cast in the Green primary. Thus, an Arizona Green Party nomination can be won by a registered write-in candidate with only a single vote. (This has been done before.)
I suppose Libertarians can change their party registration to Green and run as a Green write-ins and be assured of winning a primary if they are the only ones running in that district.
The Arizona Secretary of State office’s Election Division gives information for write-in candidates, but the deadline is 5 p.m. MST/PDT today. http://www.azsos.gov/elections/running-office
Last night I learned that a Colorado man will be filing today to run as a Green write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by John McCain.
After reading the judge’s order, I would question his page one footnote that the “somewhat different requirements” for what he calls “smaller political parties” (in other words, the mere plurality requirement for the Green Party) are not relevant to the case.
It is the success of the Arizona Libertarian Party that has caused this problem. It does not have to continually get enough signatures to be qualified for the ballot every two election cycles, as the Arizona Green Party does. (The other party that has managed to do this in recent years is the Americans Elect Party; in 2012 and 2014, Americans Elect write-in candidates won primaries with just a handful of votes.)
The post notes the irony of the failure of any Libertarian write-in candidates in the upcoming primary to get enough votes to win nomination will be evidence that the current requirements are unfair. It’s just as ironic that the success of the Libertarian party to get votes is what is causing their present difficulties. Essentially, the Libertarians’ problem is that they are neither “too big” (Democrats and Republicans) or “too small” (Greens) to nominate candidates with either enough signatures or by running as write-ins.
The right-wing-Republican-dominated state legislature probably wanted to ensure that the Libertarians would have problems getting on the ballot.
Both the Donkey/Elephant gangster gerrymander elites have standing orders from Devil City to stop all third parties and independents —
UNLESS the 3P/Inds can help DIVIDE and CONQUER the Elephants/Donkeys respectively.