On August 8, the Alaska Elections Division determined that the Green Party’s petition to be a limited party is valid. A “limited party” is one that is qualified for the presidential election, though not other office. Thanks to Tom Yager for this news.
On August 8, a challenge was filed against the New York Libertarian statewide petition, for president and U.S. Senate. The challengers are Philip Donald Stevens of Berne, New York, and Molly Rouse of Buffalo, New York.
New York requires 15,000 signatures. The Libertarian petition has 32,617 signatures. So far there are only general objections. The objectors have five days to file specific objections.
The Massachusetts petition for the Libertarian national ticket has enough valid signatures. Massachusetts requires 10,000 signatures. The Libertarian petition had 12,587 valid signatures. President and vice-president are the only statewide offices up this year in Massachusetts. If Gary Johnson gets at least 3% of the vote in November, the Libertarian Party will again be ballot-qualified in Massachusetts. It last had that status from November 2008 to November 2010. Thanks to Bill Redpath for this news.
Roll Call, Reuters, and Libertarian Republic on August 8 all published incorrect information about the Florida deadline for an emerging presidential candidate to get on the November ballot. Here is the Roll Call story and here is the Libertarian Republic story. Here is a Reuters story. All three claim the deadine in Florida has passed.
Actually, Florida permits a new party to qualify as late as the end of August. The authors of these stories are not fully informed because they only pay attention to the petition deadline for independent presidential candidates. The Florida independent presidential deadline is July 15, but that is irrelevant, because no independent presidential candidate has used that procedure since 1992. Instead they either create their own party, or persuade one of the many bllot-qualified parties to nominate them.
According to this story, former California Democratic congressman Joe Baca is changing his party registration to “independent.” He was first elected to Congress in 1998 and served seven terms. Thanks to Carla Marinucci for the link.
