On October 6, a U.S. District Court Judge in Illinois issued an entry into the record of Libertarian Party of Illinois v State Board of Elections, n.d., 1:12cv-2511. It says, “As the Court requires additional time to finalize its ruling on the pending cross-motions for summary judgment, the status hearing set for October 7, 2015 is stricken and reset for October 30, 2015, at 9 a.m. The Court does not anticipate that the new status date will be reset.”

The issue is the unique Illinois law that says newly-qualifying parties (but not already existing parties) must run a full slate of candidates. The Libertarian Party filed this case in 2012 and it still hasn’t had a decision on the merits. The judge who has the case now has now postponed a decision seven times in the last two years.

On October 5, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that a referendum should be put on the ballot in the town of Derry. The town council passed a budget that was unpopular. Opponents of the budget then successfully obtained enough signatures to put the budget on the ballot. The town council then refused to authorize an election, so opponents of the budget sued. The Supreme Court and the Superior Court both agreed with the referendum proponents that the measure should be on the ballot. The town council had argued that state law doesn’t permit such referenda for towns with a town-council form of government. The case is Chirichiello v Town of Derry, number 2015-0566 in the Supreme Court, and 218-2015-cv-871 in the lower court.

Maine requires a group that wishes to become a qualified party to obtain 5,000 registered members. This requirement was created in 2013, and replaced the old, very difficult 5% petition that had been in the law starting in 1976. The Maine Libertarian Party has been carrying on a voter registration drive for the last six months, and now has over 5,000 registrations, although they have not all yet been submitted to election officials. The drive is continuing with a goal of 6,000, for safety.

The last time the Libertarian Party was a qualified party in Maine was 1991-1992. Currently the Green Party is ballot-qualified in Maine. The Reform Party was also a ballot-qualified party in Maine in the 1990’s, but before that Maine hadn’t had any ballot-qualified parties other than the Republican and Democratic Parties since the 1910’s decade.