The Libertarian Party’s national web page has this list of 2014 Libertarian Party nominees. The list will undergo further changes. The candidates are arranged in alphabetical order of states.

On August 28, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Piersol upheld a South Dakota law that tells parties they cannot nominate a non-member. He ruled from the bench at the conclusion of the oral argument. Libertarian Party of South Dakota v Gant, 14-cv-4132. The judge said it is not a severe burden on a party to be told that it can’t nominate a non-member.

The judge relied partly on Storer v Brown, which upheld a California law saying no one could be an independent candidate if he or she had been a member of a party within the preceding year. But Freedom of Association has no bearing on that issue, and later opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court had emphasized that parties have constitutional protection to nominate whom they wish. In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court said in California Democratic Party v Jones, “Our cases vigorously affirm the special place the First Amendment reserves for, and the special protection it accords, the process by which a political party ‘selects a standard bearer who best represents the party’s ideologies and preferences. The moment of choosing the party’s nominee, we have said, is ‘the crucial juncture at which the appeal to common principles may be translated into concerted action…the ability of the members of the Republican Party to select their own candidate…unquestionably implicates an associational freedom…the rights of a recognized political party unquestionably have a constitutional right to select their nominees for public office.”

The U.S. Supreme Court reiterated this in 2008 in New York State Board of Elections v Lopez Torres, when it said, “A political party has a First Amendment right to choose a candidate-selection process that will in its view produce the nominee who best represents its political platform.” In 1840 the Whig Party chose a Democrat for Vice-President, and in 1864 the Republican Party chose a Democrat for Vice-President. It is believed that when Dwight Eisenhower was nominated for president in June 1952, he was a registered independent. In 2008 John McCain seriously considered asking U.S. Senator Joesph Lieberman, a registered Democrat, to be the Republican nominee for vice-president. It is not known if the South Dakota Libertarian Party will appeal.

The Southern Illinoisan, the daily newspaper published in Carbondale, has this editorial condemning Illinois ballot access laws for candidates and also restrictions on the statewide initiative.

Illinois has had bad ballot access laws since 1931, but one gets the impression that there has never before been so much discussion of the ballot access laws in the mainstream press of the state as there is this year. However, generally the newspapers still don’t seem to grasp that the biggest problem for minor party ballot access is that there is no procedure for a group to become a qualified party in advance of any particular election. This is a flaw shared with eleven other states.

If a new party wanted to be on the ballot in Illinois for all partisan office, it would need one petition of 25,000 signatures for its statewide slate, and approximately 250,000 signatures for its nominees for U.S. House, and 250,000 signatures for its nominees for State House, and 250,000 signatures for its slate of county nominees, and a large number (which depends on which year it is in the 10-year cycle between redistricting) for State Senate. Not only is the signature burden crushing, but signers would need to sign six separate petitions, and each sheet would need notarization. By contrast, in 38 states, one petition (or one petition drive) puts the new party’s nominees on the ballot for all office.