A few weeks ago a blog post here said that the New Mexico Secretary of State had permitted the Libertarian Party of New Mexico to change its name to the Liberal Party USA. And it said that the Free New Mexico Party had been permitted to change its name to the Libertarian Party.

This blog post was based on the fact that the November 2024 New Mexico ballot lists Laura Ebke as the presidential nominee of the Liberal Party, and it lists Chase Oliver as the nominee of the Libertarian Party. It seemed reasonable to assume that the name changes had been approved, because otherwise how could those labels be on the ballot?

But, it turns out, neither party has changed its name. Instead, the Secretary of State made an off-the-cuff decision that the presidential candidates’ party labels should not indicate which state party had nominated them. Instead, the party labels should reflect the national party names.

So, the original ballot-qualified Libertarian Party of New Mexico’s presidential nominee has the label “Liberal”, whereas its nominees for state legislature and county office have the label “Libertarian”. It seems very odd that any state would follow such a policy.

The old Libertarian Party, the one that nominated Laura Ebke, has not even asked to change its name, and is unlikely to do so in the future. And as long as it keeps its original name, then it won’t be possible for the Free New Mexico Party (which nominated Chase Oliver) to change its name to the Libertarian Party, because obviously the state won’t let two separate parties have the same name.