Under current Nebraska law, a party remains ballot-qualified if it polled 5% for any statewide race at either of the last two elections. Senator Laura Ebke, a Libertarian, has introduced LB 34. It retains the existing law, but says another method for a party to retain qualified status is to have at least 10,000 registered members. At the October 2016 tally the Libertarian Party had 10,935 registered members.

The bill does not appear to allow a group that is not now unqualified to qualify via a registration drive, although that is not clear. Nebraska voter registration forms do not list a blank line in the question about the applicant’s choice of party. There are only checkboxes, and only the qualified parties may have a checkbox. When a party goes off the ballot in Nebraska, all its members are converted to independents. So, without a change in the voter registration form, the option of having 10,000 members is not available to unqualified parties.