On January 18, the new chief of the New Mexico Elections Department, Ernest Ortega, told the New Mexico Libertarian Party that it is still ballot-qualified. However, this decision isn’t in writing yet. The Libertarian Party had thought it was disqualified in November 2004 for failing to poll one-half of 1% of the vote for president. It had only polled .31% for president.

The law is very confusing and has been interpreted in contrary ways in the past. It says a party is disqualified “If two successive general elections are held without at least one of the party’s candidates on the ballot or if the total votes cast for the party’s candidates for governor or president, provided that the party has a candidate seeking election to either of those offices, in a general election do not equal one-half of 1% for governor or president, as applicable.” The party did not have a candidate for governor on the ballot in 2002.

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in the case to allow the Oklahoma Libertarian Party to invite non-affiliated voters to participate in the party’s primary.

A federal judge ruled the state law constitutional. However, a federal appeals court ruled that the free association guarantees of the First Amendment were violated by the semi-closed system.

Ballot Access News editor Richard Winger attended the hearing and will have a full report soon.

~ Eric Garris, Webmaster

Ballot Access News is selling an 8.5 inch by eleven inch map of the United States, showing all the counties, in 5 colors, illustrating the strong and weak areas for each of these 2004 presidential candidates: Ralph Nader, Michael Badnarik, Michael Peroutka, and David Cobb. The maps are $1.50 each, or $5 for all four maps. They do not include Alaska and Hawaii.

Send a check to Ballot Access News, PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147, or else use Paypal. If you use Paypal in connection with a credit card, use ban@richardwinger.com. If you don’t use a credit card in connection with paypal, use sub@richardwinger.com.