The Flathead Beacon, in Kalispell, Montana, has this lengthy story about attempts by some Montana legislators to remove the Libertarian Party from the ballot. One bill removes the party totally; another party effectively removes it only from the 2024 U.S. Senate race. The story partly consists of an interview with Sid Daoud, state chair of the Montana Libertarian Party and a city council member in Kalispell.
The House hearing on the two bills is Friday, April 14. Both bills have already passed the State Senate.
Fair play isn’t something that’s in the duopoly playbooks much these days.
Parallel to the top-two bill from a few days ago, eh? The second bill, at least, of these two, like the top-two bill, since limited to one race in 2024, sounds like a bill of attainder. And, since it’s for a federal office, I don’t think it would matter if Montana does not have a state bill of attainder.
This is the same simplistic mindset that motivated Republicans in Arizona in 2015 when they changed the nominating signature requirements from half of one percent of registered voters in a party to one quarter of one percent of registered voters in that party plus independents. This lowered the requirement for Republicans, kept it about the same for Democrats, and increased the requirement for Libertarians by more than 25 times.
This was done because in the 2012 elections the Libertarian candidates in the first and ninth US congressional districts received more votes than the difference between the Democratic winner and the Republican loser. A Republican sponsor, J. D. Mesnard, explicitly said the legislation was meant to keep Libertarians off the ballot, and thereby secure those votes.
The Republicans were able to keep Libertarians off the general election ballot for state offices. 2016 and 2018 saw no Libertarians on the general election ballot. By contrast, there were 25 in 2004, 19 in 2008 and 18 in 2012. But it did not result in Republican hegemony. In 2015 Arizona was considered a solid red state. It isn’t anymore. Today Arizona has a Democratic governor, two Democratic senators, and seems more of a purple state than solid red.
One reason is that Libertarians did not automatically give their support to their Republican persecutors. Why would they support a party actively seeking to silence them? That was certainly my reaction. I no longer vote for Republicans.
This Republican penchant for voter suppression is not limited to Arizona and Montana. Republicans have thru various means tried to suppress non-Republican votes in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and North Dakota. The idea that eliminating the opportunity for voters to vote for the candidates of their choice will endear them to Republicans is a delusion.
Hobbs stole the election to be honest.
The garbage comment on April 14, 2023 at 5:48 am is from Robert K Stock.
The truth: I did not make that comment. I never use a pseudonym. I only comment under my own name.
Yeah, in Indiana they got upset our candidate for Governor in 2020 got 11% in a large protest against the incumbent Republican Governor, so put forth a bill saying “in the interest of fairness all candidates should meet the same requirements, whether the party nominate by primary or convention”. What this meant was for the 2 statewide elections that operate this way, Governor and U.S. Senator, to get on the Republican or Democratic primary ballot, you have to submit petitions of 500 signatures from each of the 9 Congressional districts. The sponsor wanted to apply that requirement to everyone, or in effect make it so the Libertarians couldn’t run candidates for Governor or Senator.
Not to mention this “500 signatures in all 9 districts” requirement can’t even be met by most Republicans and Democrats. This has been brutal for most campaigns that are not establishment-funded. 3 people tried to run for the Democratic party nod for Senator in 2022 and only 1 – the establishment pick – was able to meet the requirements. Indiana Democrats in fact have not had a contested statewide primary since 2008. There was a challenge to incumbent Senator Todd Young last year from his right for Young working with Biden getting the CHIPS Act passed and the guy was only able to meet the requirements in I think 5 of the 9 districts, claiming that the county election board based in Indianapolis (a Congressional district unto itself) intentionally slow-walked verifying his signatures.
A Republican in the House at the time friendly to the Libertarians proposed an amendment “well if you want everyone treated equally, it follows that to be equal you would then give them positions on the State Election Board”, which the sponsor did not want and the bill died then and there.
How hard is it to get 500 signatures in districts of 800K+? Sounds like Robert K Stock level of laziness.
Well very it seems based on everyone that fails at it. It’s not laziness more than you have to verify everyone’s address on there is correct otherwise it doesn’t count. You have to hire or have volunteers that go get the signatures. You have to get signatures in the right places (counties that have 2 congressional districts inside them based on address determines where it counts). And then the county election board verifies the signatures. In Niederberger’s case he said the Indianapolis election board sat on his signatures for 3 weeks, so he then didn’t know how many were verified and how many more to get.
The current Senator Todd Young in 2016 only got 497 verified signatures in the 1st district. The state Republican Party wanted him to win instead of the more right-wing alternative Marlin Stutzman, so Young hired as his lawyer the husband of a then Congressman in the state to represent him and the State Election Board ignored the law in that one instance. Which is ironic because the Board in 2022 kicking candidates off the ballot kept reverting to “we cannot use any discretion, we must follow state law”.
The guy that challenged Young from the right and couldn’t make the ballot, Danny Niederberger, he had a lot of grassroots enthusiasm for him among certain groups that you would think would be Trumpier. Rob Kendall, a conservative/libertarian type with a daily talk show on WIBC in Indianapolis with a large reach and hates the Republican party establishment in the state, gave Todd Young the nickname “the Duke of Spendingburg”, gave Niederberger a lot of air time. But both major parties have effectively setup systems where you need to be either rich, be very well-funded, or very well-connected to just make the primary ballot.
Here’s signature numbers for the 2022 U.S. Senate race. For Republicans, getting signatures in the 1st and 7th are brutal because those are Democrat-heavy districts. For Democrats, getting signatures in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 8th, and 9th are their brutal ones. (I don’t think an insurgent Democratic Party campaign that can make their primary ballot is even possible at this point. They’ve been so decimated in rural areas there’s not enough people in some of these districts that are not establishment Democrats.)
“It looks like the 2022 U.S. Senate race will feature Republican Todd Young and Democrat Tom McDermott.
An analysis of signatures by Indy Politics shows that only McDermott and Young have gathered enough signatures to make it on to the ballot.
Below is a list of the number of signatures that were turned in Friday at 12 to the Indiana Election Division.
Todd Young – R
CD 1 – 863
CD 2 – 892
CD 3 – 758
CD 4 – 1,219
CD 5 – 720
CD 6 – 1,086
CD 7 – 601
CD 8 – 839
CD 9 – 864
Total – 7,842
Danny Niederberger – R
CD 1 – 477
CD 2 – 502
CD 3 – 470
CD 4 – 510
CD 5 – 558
CD 6 – 654
CD 7 – 354
CD 8 – 421
CD 9 – 437
Total – 4,383
Tom McDermott – D
CD 1 – 747
CD 2 – 678
CD 3 – 646
CD 4 – 827
CD 5 – 807
CD 6 – 606
CD 7 – 612
CD 8 – 624
CD 9 – 582
Total – 6,129
Haneefah Khaaliq – D
CD 1 – 652
CD 2 – 465
CD 3 – 613
CD 4 – 473
CD 5 – 346
CD 6 – 348
CD 7 – 506
CD 8 – 493
CD 9 – 577
Total – 4,473
Valarie McCray – D
CD 1 – 275
CD 2 – 115
CD 3 – 340
CD 4 – 62
CD 5 – 211
CD 6 – 111
CD 7 – 491
CD 8 – 233
CD 9 – 157
Total – 1,995
Under state law, candidates needed at least 500 signatures of registered voters each in all nine congressional districts.”
I actually wrote in Haneefah Khaaliq for the Senate election here, not so much because I thought she was a good candidate, but because I find the requirements here in Indiana absolutely atrocious.
I didn’t vote for Rainwater back in 2020, but I definitely appreciated his result, and related, Jeff Maurer’s 5.66% in the 2022 Secretary of State race was likewise impressive.
The Libertarian Party of Indiana is putting good work in, and I definitely appreciate their efforts in doing so, despite not being a Libertarian myself.
So you’re more of a traitor, but can’t decide between Islamofash Caliphate and Amazonian Masterhood?
Mahoney just admitted to being a communist.
Hard to get signatures in district 3? Ever hear of Fort Wayne? Plenty of commies there, even the mayor is a commie. You are just a lazy ass.
Jewbertmom, the Arizona law you mentioned is good. There are excellent reasons to suppress non Republican votes. The people who don’t vote Republican or vote for rhino’s are ruining your country and making America less great, heading invariably towards turd world status at an accelerating pace as well as feminizing and weakening your fatherland through their suicidal cultural Bolshevik depopulation agenda, their disrespect towards military, policemen, militia, etc, and in many other ways. I’m a United Russia man, ex LDPR, but if I voted in your country I would vote Republican.
The left doesn’t play fair, and wants to leave no freedom protected until there’s no child’s behind left. The right needs to fight fire with fire. Winning or losing isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
The struggle between right and left is the struggle between right and wrong, between good and evil, between Satan and God. This is the final battle of all time and there can be no innocent bystanders. There are only two sides and everyone will have to choose one or the other. I live and love to be the bearer of this good news!!!
Ken, Mark, Scott, Larry, Walter, and Max all make good pointa. However, I don’t think Mahoney is even slightly ashamed to be a commie. Am I wrong???
I don’t believe this is a good-faith conversation, but I’ll bite – what in my comment suggests I’m a communist?
Are non-Libertarian voters communist? Are people who wrote in Haneefah Khaaliq communists? Is the fact that I dislike the ballot access laws here in Indiana that makes me a communist?
Nothing I said indicated whether or not I am a communist, and in fact, I never used the term in my post. What I did, if you didn’t read it, was say that I wrote in Khaaliq in the Senate race, and that I appreciated the Libertarian Party of Indiana for both Rainwater’s 2020 run and Maurer’s 2022 run.
Where does communism come into that?
So I don’t see you deny your communism. Any decent person accused of being a good for nothing commie would at least deny it. You could have been called a pederast rapist or incestuous cannibal and it should have been less insulting.
Writing in a Communist islamofascist who is genetically, hormonally and attitudinally unsuited for office says as much about you as it does about her. But why am I telling you? You know that I know, I know that you know, you know that I know that you know, etc. Now everyone reading also knows, and hopefully understood.
No idea what you’re talking about.
I saw nothing in Haneefah Khaaliq politics that indicated what you’re saying. If anything, I found her an uninspiring, mildly more progressive Democratic option than McDermott.
I didn’t deny anything because I saw no reason to. Thus far, you’ve presented no reasonable evidence to back up your claim. As I stated, not a good faith discussion whatsoever.
Unfortunately you will find very few good faith discussions on this site. I think that many people or a couple of people masquerading as a multitude believe it is their mission to drive reasonable people away. The only way to keep one’s sanity is to ignore them.
Are Mahoney and Stock the same person?
There are great discussions here.
@ Robert K Stock
I don’t doubt it. There’s a reason that Mr. Winger is considering changing the policy on comments, and it’s quite obvious to anyone who isn’t intentionally trolling, as I suspect 90% of the commenters are.
Like you say, it’s best to ignore them. I just hope that we won’t have to deal with them if we’re lucky enough to see some changes made here.
Hope this finds you well.
You will only find good faith discussion if you engage in it and stop being a plant. Stocktard admits being a communist. Mahoney doesn’t deny it. It’s like not denying being a flesh eating bacteria ball disguised as a person, except even worse. There is a very good reason why historically political leadership’s patriarchal, like leadership in the church, household, workplace, military, law enforcement, etc. A woman’s place is in the home. So what does mahomey admit to? Voting for a female for office is in itself dumb, and is if that wasn’t bad enough…
She’s got an anti-American, anti-White name! Such miscreants at best deserve to be deported, not elevated to office, particularly when political office holds way too much power. Worse than that , she is a member of a fascist death cult called Islam which has the express goal of conquering the world and making everyone and everything bow down and submit to their demonic Arabian moon rock false god and its rock whisperers. This left wing fascist cult is the second most murderous ideology in human history and a sworn enemy of Christian civilization and Americans, Europeans, the West, Russia the Third Rome, etc. Of all that is good, righteous and holy. You don’t have to remember Charles Martel and the rest of the steep cost in blood paid to save European and European based civilization from conquest by this alien death cult. Is knowing about 9/11 attacks, apartment tower block bombings by Chechens, and the rest of the terror the Islamic death cult inflicts every single day both on peoples who don’t submit and those that do submit not enough to make you not vote them into office like a good little lemming or sheep??
But wait, there’s MORE !!! It’s not enough to be a member of the demon rat swarm, literally a bunch of rodentesque disease spreading demons calling themselves “democrats,” this hormonal mess in thrall to a borglike evil death cult bent on world conquest and endless demonic domination in hell on earth is also a barely veiled Trojan horse intestinal parasite for the only world conquest death cult that’s even more murderous and tyrannical than Islam. What exactly are “progressives” progressing towards? Inexorably and inevitably toward the gulags, killing fields, holodomors, cultural revolutions, great leaps forward into the put of hell, five year plans, omelettes of broken eggs, those who count the votes deciding everything, and all the rest of the oceans of blood spilled by those waving the bloody red blood banners. Whitewashing those bloody banners does not take the stain out completely, the pinkos are progressing progressively right back to the killing fields!!!
In the face of all this, you in your lack of good faith, or in your presence of evil faith, see no reason to deny very strongly and dissociate yourself from all this evil and the evildoers who do the evil you are helping bring to the head of your table. Who does that? A fool at best, but you’ve been given more than ample opportunity and still deny nothing, while making kissy kiss kiss with an admitted BRAGGING ABOUT IT communist devil worshipping slimeball of the worst possible sort.
You are not only trying to drive actually reasonable people away , those who have demanded no censorship of your evil trash in return, you seek to do it by force of bans and censorship, just like the leftist commie fascists you actually are. You crucially commie fash! Reason is using logic, facts and history to win on the field of argument and requires at least some good faith in the faculties of those who read. Which is exactly the opposite of what the open bragging communist slime, those who don’t even bother to deny it, and those who don’t deny it the least bit convincingly do. They demand total elimination of opposing views, allowing discussion only within narrow parameters, or controlled opposition if any. They are not the reasonable ones here. QED!!!!
STOCK SAYS THE BEST WAY TO KEEP ONE’S SANITY IS TO IGNORE THOSE OF US WHO ARE ACTUALLY REASONABLE, AS IN WILLING AND EAGER TO REASON AND DISCUSS. YET HE DOES THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF IGNORING US ALL THE TIME ENDLESSLY. HE IS OPENLY ADMITTING HIS INSANITY. QED REDUX!!!!!
MAHONEY then snowballs his fellow commie, nuzzling each other in their express non ignoring of those of us who are actually reasonable in truth, and united in the afterglow of their thrusting for censorious communist tyranny, both here in this forum and in real life as they vote for commie fascist politicians and nurse their masturbatory fantasies of mass murder, revolution, gulags, etc.
“Hard to get signatures in district 3? Ever hear of Fort Wayne?”
I’ve lived and worked there and in the surrounding area the past 10 years and I was elected to a Township position as a Republican that had Fort Wayne in part inside it. After the 2015 municipal elections it had a 7-2 Republican majority on City Council, and after 2019 it was still 5-4. City has a quarter million people but the reason it does is all its suburbs were annexed over the decades, so the city is more conservative than you’d think. Only truly Democratic majority parts of the city are downtown and the black majority south of downtown. As far as the 3rd district, those areas inside Fort Wayne might be the only precincts they can win inside the district. Not looked in depth at every county but would not surprise me if that was the case.
Amendment: a woman’s place is ideally but not always in the home. It’s ok for women to hold subordinate workplace positions and do traditional women’s jobs, especially until they find a husband. They must never be allowed to take men’s jobs or be bosses. The ideal place for a woman is of course as a submissive housewife and mother, but young unmarried women and unsuccessful spinster can arguably be allowed in subordinate positions as servants, customer servers, caretakers, nurturers etc, as long as there is a male boss to boss them around and put them in their place with attitude adjustments and punishment when needed.