As previously noted, the Alabama Libertarian Party sued the Secretary of State last year over the state’s policy of giving a free list of registered voters to ballot-qualified parties, but not to parties trying to get on the ballot. Libertarian Party of Alabama v Merrill, m.d., 2:19cv-69.

The Secretary of State has deposed all of the party’s plaintiffs, which is expensive. Now the Secretary of State has hired a political science professor and is paying her $300 per hour to defend the state law. However, the professor is only charging $150 per hour for time spent travelling. The professor’s report says that major parties perform useful functions for society, whereas generally minor parties do not.

None of the case law on this issue ever considered the concept that major parties are more useful than minor parties, and all other lawsuits on this issue have resulted in a win for the minor party or independent candidate who filed the case. The U.S. Supreme Court itself summarily affirmed a 3-judge U.S. District Court decision from New York in 1970 that said if the state gives the major parties a free list of the registered voters, it must also provide it for unqualified parties that are about to petition to get on the ballot.

The Secretary of State of Alabama could probably furnish the list of registered voters to the Libertarian Party with virtually no cost to the state whatsoever. Nowadays lists of registered voters are electronic files. But the Secretary of State would rather spend taxpayer dollars than do anything to help the Libertarian Party get on the ballot.

On February 24, the Maine Green Party announced publicly that it will not be able to place its candidate for U.S. Senate, Lisa Savage, on the Maine Green Party primary ballot. Maine, like Massachusetts and Arizona, makes it extremely difficult for a small ballot-qualified party to place members on its own primary ballot. Maine requires 2,000 signatures of party members, regardless of whether the party has hundreds of thousands of members, or a much smaller number.

The Maine Libertarian Party is currently suing over the primary petition requirements, and the fact that the Green Party was unable to overcome will be put into evidence. The only three ballot-qualified parties in Maine in the last 40 years, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, have been the Libertarian, Reform, and Green Parties. None of them has ever been able to place any member on the primary ballot who was running for either house of Congress.

Savage will instead petition as an independent. That requires 4,000 signatures, but any voter may sign, so it is far easier than getting 2,000 signatures of party members. The Maine Green Party has 43,143 registered members but they are scattered all over the state.

On February 24, the D.C. circuit heard Level the Playing Field v FEC, the presidential debate case. Here is a link to the oral argument.