Georgia Libertarian Party Asks to Amend Complaint in Georgia Ballot Access Case

Posted on by May 21, 2024
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On May 21, the Georgia Libertarian Party asked a U.S. District Court to amend its Complaint in Cowen v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:17cv-4660.  This is the case filed to overturn the Georgia law on how a candidate can get on the November ballot for U.S. House if the candidate is not the nominee of a party that polled 20% of the vote in the last election.  The law is so severe that even though it is 81 years old, no minor party candidate for U.S. House has ever been able to comply with it.

The Libertarian Party request to amend the Complaint notes that the Georgia law was recently changed to allow any minor party to be on for president if it is already on for president in 20 other states or territories.  This opens up the state for the Libertarian Party to argue that the entire Georgia ballot access scheme involving minor parties violates Equal Protection.  Minor party presidential candidates can be on in Georgia even if they have no support whatsoever inside Georgia.  By contrast, minor party nominees for all other partisan office are kept off the ballot with prohibitive petition requirements.  Even the statewide petition is so strict that no minor party has completed the statewide petition since 1996, when the Reform Party did it.  Although Pat Buchanan petitioned in 2000, he did so as an independent candidate, not as the Reform Party nominee.

Top-Two Initiative Qualifies for South Dakota Ballot

Posted on by May 21, 2024
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On May 21, the South Dakota Secretary of State determined that the initiative to establish a top-two system in South Dakota has enough valid signatures.  Proponents of the initiative call it an “open primary” proposal.  But past U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and all political science textbooks that talk about political parties, define “open primary” as a system in which each party its own primary ballot and its own nominees, but on primary day any voter can choose any party’s primary ballot.  Proponents of top-two systems believe that “open primary” is an appealing label, so they have bent it to their own purposes.

In top-two systems, there are no party nominees nor party primary ballots.  Instead every candidate runs in June and then only the two who get the most votes may run in November.  South Dakota is already one of five states that bans all write-in votes.

No top-two ballot measure has passed since 2010, when the California measure passed with 53.7% of the vote.  Since then the idea has been defeated by the voters in Oregon twice, Arizona, South Dakota, and Florida.  Proponents of top-two vastly outspent opponents in all those instances.

Mises Caucus Instructions to Some Libertarian Party National Convention Delegates Have Incorrect Information About 2020 Election and the Green Party

Posted on by May 21, 2024
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ThirdPartyWatch has posted the advice for certain Libertarian Party national convention delegates.  Under the heading, “Larry Sharpe”, the document says that Larry Sharpe is ineligible to be the vice-presidential nominee because he is currently the stand-in presidential candidate on the party’s New York petition.

The advice document says, “The Green Party was successfully removed from the ballot in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2020 for failing to adhere to their bylaws.”  This statement is inaccurate.  The Green Party presidential nominee in Pennsylvania in 2020 was kept off the ballot because his campaign faxed some documents into the state elections office, instead of bring them in personally.

The Green Party’s presidential ticket was removed from the Wisconsin ballot in 2020 because the independent petition form in Wisconsin requires the address of the listed candidates to be shown.  The vice-presidential nominee moved during the petition drive, so her new address wasn’t listed on the petition forms.

In neither Pennsylvania nor Wisconsin did the disqualification of the Green national ticket relate to the Green Party bylaws.  There is no instance in any state in all history in which a third party presidential nominee was kept off a state ballot because that party didn’t follow its own bylaws when it chose its national ticket.