On August 1, the Colorado Secretary of State said the independent presidential petition for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has enough valid signatures.
On August 1, the Colorado Secretary of State said the independent presidential petition for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has enough valid signatures.
Incoming frivolous Democratic Party lawsuit in 3…2…1…
Frivolous Democratic Party lawsuit incoming in 3…2…1…
I thought the LPCO already nominated him.
They did. But then the national LP’s secretary, Caryn Ann Harlos, by-passed the LPCO and filed a nominating certificate for Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat with the Colorado Secretary of State, Jena Griswold.
Despite the fact that this is illegal, because the national chair and/or secretary are not allowed to nominate candidates which the state party’s board of directors has rejected, Griswold conspired with Harlos to illegally place the Oliver-ter Maat ticket on the Colorado ballot as if it were the Libertarian ticket.
It is still not clear to me whether the LPCO intends to take Griswold to court, but Harlos is suing them for rejecting the Oliver-ter Maat ticket which she falsely claims they were duty-bound to nominate because the national party did, even though that is not at all how that works, and even though the national party’s nominating convention was rife with irregularities and by-law violations which bring the legitimacy of national party’s nomination into question.
In any event, Kennedy wasn’t going to hang around waiting to see what would come of it, so he did the smart thing and filed as an independent.
Kennedy had already completed his independent petition for Colorado when the Colorado LP acted as it did.
I was a delegate to the national Libertarian Party convention and I observed that the convention nomination process was fair and well-handled. Of course Angela McArdle was the presiding officer of the convention.
Harlos should be removed from her position immediately.
The entire convention was bedlam, like a Chuck E. Cheese full of spoilt toddlers, as has apparently been the norm for Libertarian national conventions since 1987.
There were endless shouting matches laced with obscenities and threats. The secret service blocked fire escapes, stairwells, elevators and toilets. Security physically removed at least two delegates, Dan Reale and Starchild. Rectenwald was consuming edibles before giving a press conference.
Trump’s campaign had the hotel staff remove Lars Mapstead’s campaign posters and stickers. They then proceeded to take the seats which had been reserved for Libertarian delegates, and were allowed to threaten and harass convention attendees. And C-SPAN walked out on the event.
I commented at the time that I did not understand why McArdle would even want to be re-elected for another term as chair.
And the nominating process was no less of a mess; it was certainly by no means either fair or well-handled:
Prospective delegates of whom it was unclear whether or not they had been legitimately seated, were themselves taking part in voting on whether or not they had been legitimately seated.
Non-delegates were taking part in voice votes and standing votes.
And, after he himself had already been eliminated from the race, Mike ter Maat abused a faux point of personal privilege to announce that he was going to be Oliver’s running-mate, during voting so as to change the outcome of that vote in Oliver’s favor.
The whole thing was a joke. Schadenfreude of the most vulgar kind. The biennial reminder of why no libertarian ever wants to be associated with the Libertarian Party. A complete vindication of those who had predicted that the Mises Caucus would not be able to hold a more civilized convention than the LINOs. It was second-hand embarrassing.
Oh and delegates were lied to about many state parties losing ballot access if NOTA was nominated instead of Oliver. Turns out only Kentucky would lose ballot access as a direct result, and Georgia as a result of failing to retain ballot access by any other means.
WILL A ***REAL DEMOCRACY*** PARTY COME OUT OF THE WRECKAGE OF THE MISES NATL/STATE LPS ???
— WITH
PR
APPV
TOTSOP
ELECTION OF PARTY OFFICERS BY ALL MAIL BALLOTS
Kennedy should not want to be associated with such a party either.
@Nuña
Explain about the ballot access assertion. My vote for president in 2020 helped a party retain ballot access in my state. I don’t live in the states you mentioned.
“Despite the fact that this is illegal, because the national chair and/or secretary are not allowed to nominate candidates which the state party’s board of directors has rejected, Griswold conspired with Harlos to illegally place the Oliver-ter Maat ticket on the Colorado ballot as if it were the Libertarian ticket.”
Illegal under what statute?
“Harlos is suing them for rejecting the Oliver-ter Maat ticket which she falsely claims they were duty-bound to nominate because the national party did,”
This isn’t important enough to me to go looking through their bylaws, but I’ve been told that’s in their rules. Was I misinformed? Is there something in there that says the national party defers its presidential nomination to state party approval after the fact? If that’s the case, why do they even have national nomination conventions?
“even though the national party’s nominating convention was rife with irregularities and by-law violations which bring the legitimacy of national party’s nomination into question.”
Wouldn’t those have to be proven in a judicial proceeding of some sort before they would constrain her actions as a national party officer carrying out what she believes are her duties as such?
“The entire convention was bedlam, like a Chuck E. Cheese full of spoilt toddlers, as has apparently been the norm for Libertarian national conventions since 1987.”
Was it different before 1987? If so, what changed?
“Oh and delegates were lied to about many state parties losing ballot access if NOTA was nominated instead of Oliver. Turns out only Kentucky would lose ballot access as a direct result, and Georgia as a result of failing to retain ballot access by any other means.”
I’ve seen that claim made, too. How did you determine it would be only Kentucky and Georgia? Did you read every state’s ballot access laws, or what is/are your source(s) on that?
Does anyone else here have confirmation or proof to the contrary for any of these claims?
@Adam Cerini
The requirements for retaining ballot access differ per state. Kentucky is the only state in which there is no other way for a party to retain ballot access than getting a certain number of votes in the previous PRESIDENTIAL election, specifically (if I recall correctly, it’s something like 20% of votes cast for a “political party”, 2% for a “political organization”).
Georgia law also allows other routes to retain ballot access, such as getting enough votes in the previous GUBERNATORIAL elections. But the Libertarian Party of Georgia failed to meet those alternative requirements as well, and would therefore incidentally lose ballot access if they did not field a candidate. (Which they will do anyway, if Oliver doesn’t win enough votes in Georgia.)
In no other state, would the Libertarian Party lose ballot access as a result of not fielding a presidential candidate. Yet delegates at the Libertarian national convention were incorrectly informed that the LP would lose ballot access in many states, if they voted NOTA over Chase Oliver.
@Jack
In most states, the state affiliate party is the party that nominates candidates, rather than the national party. Whether or not the affiliate party is bound to make the same nomination is an internal party matter, subject to the party by-laws. Colorado is a bit of an exception, in that it allows a national party’s chair and/or secretary to certify a nomination if the state party does not do so.
What happened was that the Colorado LP announced its nomination of Robert Kennedy and Nicole Shanahan before filing the certification with the Colorado secretary of state. This allowed Caryn Ann Harlos, the national LP’s secretary to quickly swoop in and file a certificate of nomination for Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat, before the LPCO filed their certificate. Harlos did so against the express wishes of the national chair Angela McArdle.
The problem with Jena Griswold, the Colorado SoS, allowing Harlos to do this, is that the LP national secretary (or chair) is not supposed to nominate candidates unless that state party does not make any nominations. And even more particularly, the party does not allow the national secretary (or chair) to nominate a candidate who has been explicitly rejected by the state party’s board of directors – which Oliver had – even in the event that they decide not to nominate anyone else.
The 1987 Libertarian national convention is when the party explicitly split into libertarians (e.g. Ron Paul and David Bergland) and anti-libertarians (e.g. Russell Means and Andre Marrou) camps.
Harlos herself admitted that delegates were lied to and only the Kentucky and Georgia affiliates would have lost ballot access, had NOTA won the nomination.
They wouldn’t have lost anything in KY because they aren’t ballot qualified as a party in KY anyway. The LP is doing a petition in KY right now to just get Chase and Mike on the ballot. They are not a party in KY anyway.
So really nothing since they can qualify in Georgia with public service commission.