The Libertarian Party of Vermont nominated nine candidates on September 13, 2006. Seven were running for the legislature and two for local office. Four of them mailed their acceptance forms on the morning of September 14. The deadline for the Secretary of State to receive these forms was September 15. Normally, all intra-Vermont postal mail is delivered in one day. However, in this case, none of the forms filed by the four arrived until September 16, and the Secretary of State is taking a hard-line position and denying them ballot access.
Three other Libertarians running for the legislature did not have deadline problems. They include two with the label “Libertarian, Republican” and one with the label “Libertarian”. Among the four legislative candidates who are being denied ballot status, three will still be on the ballot, but as “Republican” instead of the desired label “Libertarian, Republican”.
The Libertarian Party will continue to be a ballot-qualified party in Vermont. Vermont determines party status by whether it is organized in 10 towns, not on how many votes it polls or how many candidates it runs. Thanks to Hardy Machia for correcting the original version of this post (with his comment below). The party has not had any intent to run any statewide nominees this year.
Although the Vermont Secretary of State should have honored the intent to file timely, the blame here must go firmly on the Libertarians in Vermont. It was their clear responsibility to ensure that the paperwork got delivered on time, even if that meant delivery in person. They just plain blew it here.
Ouch! What a disappointment.
The Libertarians in Southern California, California, and nationally have also ‘blown it’ on not expanding on Veterans Issues. Since spring 1998 California Libs have been advised of how rotten, lethally so, local, state and national government programs for veterans and their families are.
They cry about how crummy government is in general, but then fail to spot light the specifics [like CALVETS and California’s terrible terrible veterans ‘care’ campuses].
At least with Vermont’s failure to deliver first class mail over night in a small restricted area, the Libs can now complain how inefficient and uneffective the United States Postal System is.
Let’s sit back and watch them blow this opportunity also.
Double sadness, double sadness.
We do have three state house candidates on the ballot – 2 as Lib/Rep and one as 1.
Three of the Libertarians they are trying to deny are on the ballot as Republicans because they won Republican primaries. The law clearly states that a candidate who receives nominations from two parties has until this Friday to file so I think it might take the courts to tell the SoS to put our candidates on, but we have a very good chance to get three others on as Libertarian/Republicans.
I also need to point out that all of candidates had consent forms file by the deadline. The originals were delayed in the mail, but I filed all of the consent forms for our candidates as power of attorney to file their consent forms. The SoS wanted original signed copies.
So in the end, we screwed up with out last minute candidates by not having them drive from all points of Vermont to the Sec of State’s office to make sure they made it, but most of the people aren’t on the ballot weren’t the focus on our 10/10/10 efforts to elect Libertarians to the State House, and we still have a good chance to get 5-6 Libertarians elected to the State House.
— Hardy