On June 2, the Arkansas Libertarian Party turned in more than 15,000 signatures to restore its party status. The law requires 10,000 valid signatures. This is the first petition drive the Libertarian Party has completed since the 2014 election. Assuming the petition is valid, the party will be on for President in 2016 in 31 states. See this story.
The Arkansas law on how a party remains on the ballot is irrational. Minor parties almost never get 3% for President. The only minor parties that have polled 3% nationally for President since World War II have been the American Independent Party in 1968, and the Reform Party in 1996. But the Arkansas law requires a party to poll 3% for President in order to remain ballot-qualified after a presidential year, and also requires it to poll 3% for Governor in order to remain on after a gubernatorial election.
The state has had to check Libertarian petitions in 2012 and 2014 and will need to do it again very soon. The state also had to validate Green Party petitions in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014. It costs election administrators approximately $1 for each signature that must be verified. So the minor parties waste resources on petitioning, and the government wastes tax dollars as well. A more rational law would recognize that these parties do have a modicum of support and should not be required to submit petition after petition. However, the Arkansas legislature is extraordinarily hostile to minor parties, and just last week changed the law to require new parties in 2016 to have chosen all their nominees by November 2015. No state has ever before required any type of party to have chosen all its nominees for an election during the year before the election. Besides being absurd, the law is also discriminatory, because the major parties in 2016 won’t be required to choose their nominees until March 2016.
