On August 3, the North Dakota Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Roland Riemers, the Libertarian candidate for Secretary of State, is entitled to a recount of the June 12 primary. The original tally gave him only 247 votes in the Libertarian primary (which is part of a one-piece of paper open primary, also holding the Democratic and Republican primary contests). He needs 300 in order to be listed on the November ballot.
UPDATE: see this story.
Do they really think 53 votes were not counted, or is this a Hail Mary?
I’m confused. I thought Libertarians eschewed the primaries opting instead to save taxpayer’s money by nominating their own candidates with their own self-paid conventions.
Jeff, state law requires all qualified parties to nominate by primary.
Keith, chances are extremely high that Riemers got far more votes than 247. But probably lots of those voters voted for him, and then voted for Democrats or Republicans for other office.
https://www.ndcourts.gov/court/opinions/20180274.htm
ND SCT OP
—
NO PRIMARIES
PR AND APPV
IMO any recognized party entitled to a primary may list any candidate any way they want on their own ballot. If they want petitioning, fee payment, convention, or listing by state committee or chairman, let them.
If the LP has to dot & cross a few unethical, ridiculous I’s and T’s in order to stay on the ballot in their state, they will do so, Jeff.
@WZ,
States should not accord political parties any special privileges or recognition. A candidate and his supporters should appear at government offices to place him on the ballot.
JR —
EQUAL nominating petitions — esp. in larger regimes — or equal filing fees.
Richard, is it ALL parties in ND? Here in WVa, primaries are only mandated for parties that get at least 10% for their gubernatorial candidate. Only the Reps and Dems have accomplished that so far. Any other party which qualifies for ballot access with between 1% and 9.9999% has the option of using the primary OR nominating by convention. Libertarians nominate by convention and somehow the Mountain (Green) party gets away with doing both. Would love to see a breakdown of the rules for other states. One of the first steps to leveling the playing field is to definitely abolish the taxpayer-funded primaries!
All qualified parties must nominate solely by primary in Alaska, Arizona, D.C., Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wisconsin. However, in many of those states, unqualified parties can appear on the general election ballot with the party label, and they don’t nominate by primary.
@DR,
Nominating petitions are hard to verify or are subject to challenges. Better is the method used in Zambia where the supporters of a candidate appear as a group at the election office. This also can serve as a campaign rally.
JR – how many supporters of a candidate in CA required to show up —
MAJOR mob scene ???
Again – rotted primaries only because of earlier really rotted gangster bosses picking candidates —
esp. a problem in smaller personality / leader cult parties.
see very early commies and nazis.
RE RW primary info —
ALL the ballot access systems (primary/ runoff primary/ caucus/ convention/ independent) should be in the *Useful Information* at top of BAN —
to avoid having to repeat the ballot access mess in any given State/DC/colony.
IE a table/chart with the required zillion footnotes for special stuff —
needing many updates for the latest machinations by the gerrymander HACKS —
with at least yearly reviews after the HACK annual sessions.
@DR,
1/10 of 1%. In California this would be 7514 voters. Perhaps they could be organized by county. In Zambia, they make appointments,