The Libertarian Party has been placing its presidential nominee on the ballot in all states, or almost all states, ever since 1988. In order to achieve this, the party has traditionally done a considerable amount of petitioning in the odd year before the presidential election. However, so far, in 2019, the party’s petitioning efforts have been smaller than in 2015 and 2011.

In 2011, by mid-September, the party had finished its Arkansas and Maryland petition drives, and was well on the way with its New Hampshire party petition.

In 2015, by mid-September, the party had finished its Arkansas drive, and was mostly finished with its Maine registration drive. It had also made a significant start on its Oklahoma and South Dakota petitions.

In 2019, so far, the party has finished its Arkansas drive, and is virtually finished with its North Dakota drive. But it has not made significant progress on other drives. Maryland has a petition drive using only unpaid volunteers. Maine has a registration drive using only unpaid volunteers. The party could be doing its Alaska registration drive, but it is not. As to New Hampshire, in the years since 2011, the legislature has made it illegal for a party petition to be circulated in the odd year before an election year, so that explains why no New Hampshire petitioning is occurring in 2019.

Mission Viejo, a California city in Orange County, had decided to use Cumulative Voting to elect all five of its city councilmembers in the 2020 election. However, on September 18, the California Secretary of state ruled that Cumulative Voting is not legal in California for general law cities.

Under Cumulative Voting, if there are five seats to be filled, a voter has five votes, but he or she can spread them around so as to give two votes to one candidate, and three votes to another candidate, if the voter votes for only two candidates. The voter can even give all five votes to a single candidate.

No city in California has ever used Cumulative Voting.