According to this article, the Georgia Libertarian Party is working on a petition to regain its qualified status for statewide office. It needs 72,679 signatures and is due in July 2026. Thanks to Independent Political Report for the link.
No Libertarian Party petition, or petition for a Libertarian nominee, has ever before surmounted such a large number of signatures since 1978, when Ed Clark had to collect 99,822 signatures in California to be an independent candidate for Governor.
On May 20, the U.S. Supreme Court gave injunctive relief to Laurel D. Libby, the Maine legislator who has not been allowed to cast votes on the floor of the Maine House for several months because she won’t apologize for a social media post that pictured and named a particular high school transgender student. The vote is 7-2. The majority did not issue any opinion. Justices Sotomayor and Jackson dissent.
The case is Libby v Fecteau, 24A1051. Now it goes back to the First Circuit. Jackson dissented on the grounds that the Maine legislature is about to adjourn for the year so there is no time emergency.
On May 20, Maine Congressman Jared Golden said he will run for re-election as a Democrat. Earlier he had said he might seek the No Labels nomination to run for Governor.
Georgia is holding two statewide partisan elections in November 2025 for Public Service Commission. Normally Georgia never holds partisan statewide elections in odd years. But the elections for that office were not held in 2022 nor 2024, due to litigation over whether they should be statewide or by district. The courts ruled in favor of statewide elections.
This will be the first statewide partisan election in Georgia since 1986 in which only the Democratic and Republican Parties are on the ballot. For all elections 1988 through 2024, the Libertarian Party was also on the ballot for statewide office (but not district office). The Libertarian Party went off the statewide ballot in November 2024, although it surely would have stayed on if only the Public Service Commission seats had been up. The party always got enough votes to remain on for that office. But nothing was on the statewide ballot in 2024 except president.
On May 19, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed HB 207. It reduces the petition requirement for non-presidential independent candidates from 5% of the winner’s vote for that office at the last election, to 4%. Ironically this still leaves Montana with the nation’s highest percentage petition requirement for non-presidential independents for statewide office. The 2026 petition for U.S. Senate (the only statewide race up in 2026) drops from 15,985 to 12,788.
The bill also says if the independent petition fails, the candidate get a refund of the filing fee. On the other hand, it bans sore losers from running write-in campaigns.
