Iowa Removes Libertarians from Ballot for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and U.S. House

Posted on by June 16, 2026

On June 15, Iowa state officials removed three Libertarians from the ballot. They include the party’s nominees for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and U.S. House in one district. See this story.

No one questioned the validity of the signatures. Approximately 8,000 had been gathered for the ticket of Governor and Lieutenant Governor. The candidates expect to sue to reverse the decision.

The party is on for one other U.S. House seat, and for U.S. Senate.

Comments

Iowa Removes Libertarians from Ballot for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and U.S. House — 44 Comments

  3. Why does a guy whose legal name is Mark Thomas Andersen go by the name Marco Battaglia?

  4. The only part of the decision that was wrong was to allow Richard Stewart to falsely petition on to the ballot as “Rick.”

  5. James Richard Perry always ran for office as “Rick Perry”.

    James David Vance goes by “JD Vance” (and his middle name and surname changed during his life).

    Dan Patrick was born Dannie Scott Goeb (rhymes with Globe). He had gone by “Dan Scott” as a radio DJ. At a job in Scranton, PA, the station manager told him that he had to change his stage name because there was a “Scott” at a competing station. He chose Patrick which was his wife’s brother middle name. He was known as “Dan Patrick” as a TV and radio personality in Houston. When he first thought about running for office, he found that he would have to run for office as Dan Goeb. Nobody would know who that was, and odd sounding names can be a liability on the ballot. He legally changed his name to “Dan Goeb Patrick”.

    Mark Anderson should change his name to Marco Battaglia.

  8. There are a few small, isolated tribes where people go by only one name, as opposed to a given name and family name. Andy No Last Name comes from such a tribe.

  13. If I changed my legal name to Dennis Frank Lysander Spooner Robinson would it be too long to print on the state monopoly general election ballot? What would they demand I abbreviate it to?

  14. BTW, in Oklahoma there is no state law specifying the maximum number of letters to print a candidate’s name on the ballot. It is matter of regulatory discretion.
    According to this AI bot: I can’t find any Oklahoma law or official guidance that sets a specific character/letter limit for candidate names on the ballot. Ballot layout and name presentation are determined by the Oklahoma State Election Board (formatting may truncate or abbreviate long names to fit the ballot). For an authoritative answer or to request a specific ballot-proof, contact the Oklahoma State Election Board: https://oklahoma.gov/elections.html. – GPT-5 mini

  15. @DFR,

    That name would violate Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the US Constitution.

  16. One person, one vote, one name for one candidate on the ballot for one office seems a reasonable rule. But which name for that candidate? The only filing requirement a candidate should have to make is an affidavit specifying the name they want counted so long as no other person has not filed a previous affidavit with the identical name.
    The state monopoly ballot might limit the number of characters for a candidate’s name to 26 like Abcdefgh Ijklmno Pqrstuvwxyz. Twenty-six characters should be enough to distinguish a candidate in all but the rarest instances. A lengthy candidate name should not be construed as “crowding” the ballot.
    In the case of a write-in only ballot the voter should be provided with enough space to write-in any name no matter the length.

  17. With standing count or voice vote, it isn’t even an issue, particularly with standing count.

  19. Every time the crAZy AZeri nAZi-666 spambot calls Liberator Trump a tyrant, it proves that he is the opposite of a tyrant.

  20. LSDFR: Your blank ballots would have to be book length.

    The current Guinness World Record for the longest personal name belongs to Laurence Watkins (born in New Zealand, now an Australian citizen), whose name consists of 2,253 unique words. Watkins legally changed his name in 1990 by adding over 2,000 middle names to his original birth name, Laurence Gregory Watkins.

  22. USSR YESTERDAY is fake news, like just about all news sources used by the nAZi spambot. It should just stick to answering Ifo’s questions and nothing else.

  23. Grok comments on BAN:

    Robert K. Stock (often just called “Stock”) is by far the most notorious and frequently accused troll on Ballot Access News (ballot-access.org).
    Why him?

    Multiple accusations of sockpuppeting/aliases: Commenters routinely claim he posts under various fake names (e.g., “Joshua H.”, “Taran”, “Flip”, “Just Me”, “SocraticGadfly”, “Rad”, “Dylan”, and others) to stir drama, contradict himself, or prolong arguments. This is a recurring theme across many posts from 2024–2026.
    Disruptive posting style: He’s described as attention-seeking, posting inflammatory or off-topic comments, flip-flopping on endorsements (e.g., Kennedy → Trump → Harris accusations), and engaging in personal attacks or nonsense that derails threads. Others call him a “retard troll,” “Satanist,” or accuse him of gaslighting.
    Community consensus in comments: Across recent articles (including June 2026 posts), users repeatedly identify him as the primary source of trolling. Threads often devolve into “Is this Stock?” meta-discussions. Even when he posts under his real name, it sparks accusations.

    Andy Gonzalez is another frequent and polarizing commenter (often tied to petitioning/Libertarian topics and occasional drama), but he doesn’t match the volume or consistency of accusations leveled at Stock.
    The site’s comment sections (WordPress-based, per post) are notoriously unmoderated and troll-heavy, but Stock stands out as the lightning rod. Richard Winger (the publisher) and others have tolerated it for years, leading to these running jokes/ feuds.

  28. Everyone is Robert Stock in your twisted fantasies. I don’t agree with him on anything that I know of, other than that you’re the troll you accuse him of being.

  30. Check out the wild IPR-X interview of 2028 presidential candidate Robert Milnes on IPRX [dot] wordpress [dot] com.

  31. Whatever, troll. If anyone is Stock between the two of us, it’s you. You certainly want him to get attention.

    I don’t agree with Stock on any political issues. I’m way to the right of Trump. I worship Jesus, not Satan.

    The only one who keeps bringing Stock up is you.

  36. “White Men Can Trump on June 14, 2026 at 6:45 pm said:

    Rule 34,

    I think the actual site comments are retard fetish porn.”

  38. He comments occasionally. He says he doesn’t use email anymore, only SMS texting, no voice calls or social media. I don’t have the number handy but I think I saw it in open thread II on your blog.

  40. Hi Tom. I see you are back trying to get attention for your blog.

  41. Running as a racist candidate is a smart strategy to get campaign funds from the southern poverty law center.

  43. Excerpt:

    Regardless, Judge Garaufis did not need to evaluate Microchip’s general credibility to determine whether he should be permitted to testify using a pseudonym. The “underlying purpose of identity testimony is to establish a background setting in which to test veracity.” Urena, 8 F. Supp. 3d at 573 (quoting Stanard, 42 N.Y.2d at 84). To prevail, the defendant would have had to show that Microchip’s true name was truly probative with regard to the question of guilt or innocence. As Judge Garaufis found, the defendant did not make that showing, especially since “the relevant exchanges and interactions all took place over the internet,” where Microchip was known by his moniker rather than his “legal name or personal background.” (ECF No. 82 at 8.)

    Thus, Microchip’s true name did not establish anything about “his credibility or knowledge regarding” the alleged conspirators, especially since the defendant and the alleged co-conspirators knew him only by his online moniker.

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