Libertarian and Green Parties of New York Request Permission to Intervene in Team Kennedy Lawsuit

Posted on by August 6, 2024
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On August 2, a Notice of Motion and a Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion to Intervene as Plaintiffs in the Team Kennedy v. Berger, et al. lawsuit was filed in US District Court in the Southern District of New York.

In that litigation, Team Kennedy challenges (1) the law stating that a petition signer can sign only a petition for one candidate for a given office, (2) the law that prohibits petition signers from listing their village instead of their city or town, (3) the requirement that an Independent presidential candidate’s slate of electors be listed on his or her petition when partisan candidates do not need to name electors until after their national nominating conventions, (4) the requirement to gather 45,000 valid signatures in just six weeks, and (5) the prohibition of paying petition circulators and witnesses on a per signature basis.

The Motion states that the LP & GP have interests aligned with Team Kennedy but are not adequately represented by Team Kennedy’s attorneys, therefore, the ability to intervene in this litigation with their own counsel is being asked of the court.

Here are the documents filed on behalf of the Libertarian and Green parties.

Tim Walz Has a Bad Record on Ballot Access

Posted on by August 6, 2024
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The presumptive Democratic Party nominee for vice-president, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, has a record of hostility toward minor parties and the voters who want to vote for minor parties.  On May 23, 2023, he signed HF 1830.  It altered the Minnesota definition of a qualified party from a group that polled 5% at either of the last elections, to one that polled 8% at either of the last two elections.

That made Minnesota the fifth-most difficult state in the nation for a minor party to retain its spot on the ballot.  The only states with a worse vote test for party status are Alabama (20%), Virginia (10%), and New Jersey (10%).  Also Pennsylvania’s registration test of 15% is worse than any other state’s test.

The Democratic majority in Minnesota wrote SF 1830 in order to eliminate the Legal Marijuana Now Party from the ballot.  After it was pointed out to them that it violates constitutional due process to make the definition of a party effective immediately, the bill was amended to not apply until 2026.  But then this year the Democratic Party challenged the status of the Legal Marijuana Now Party in state court, and the State Supreme Court removed it, on the grounds that it had the wrong type of structure.

HB 1830 also says votes for declared write-in candidates will no longer be counted, in most cases.

None of the other Democratic politicians who had been under consideration for the vice-presidential nomination are known to have ever harmed ballot access in their own state.