On June 7, the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, the ballot-qualified party, filed this brief in Libertarian National Committee v Libertarian Party of New Mexico, 1:26cv-1562. This is the trademark lawsuit initiated by the Libertarian National Committee. The brief depends on party history and recounts events from 1972, the year of the party’s founding.
The Last Ward, a Chicago news outlet, here describes the nightmare of petitioning in Chicago for School Board candidates, and advocates that the legislature authorize electronic signatures.
On June 8, the challenger to the Wisconsin Green Party petition for Secretary of State was withdrawn. So Pete Karas will be on the Green Party primary ballot.
Colorado holds primaries for four parties on June 30. It is unusual for minor parties to have primaries, but if a minor party nominating convention shows substantial support for two or more candidates for the same office, a primary is held. The Unity Party has a gubernatorial primary between Jeff Peckman and Paul Noel Fiorino. The Libertarian Party has a primary for Secretary of State between Alex Astley and Sean Vadney.
On June 5, independent New Mexico gubernatorial candidate Ken Miyagishima filed a lawsuit to overturn the 2% petition requirement for statewide independent candidates. The lawsuit was filed in Santa Fe district court. See this story. The case is Miyagishima v Touloouse Oliver, d101cv-2026-01571. It is before Judge Matthew Wilson.
No independent candidate has ever been on the ballot for Governor of New Mexico. New Mexico has never had easy ballot access requirements for independent candidates, although in the past New Mexico had very easy ballot access for minor parties. The only statewide independent candidate petitions that succeeded in New Mexico were those for president in 1980, 1992, and 2004; and one for U.S. Senate in 1996. Ever since 2019 the independent presidential petition has been one-half of 1%, so I am excluding instances of presidential petition usages that were after 2019.
