Frank McKay, state chair of the New York Independence Party, and a foe of Lenora Fulani and her allies, has sent postal letters to the several thousand newly-elected Independence Party county committee members. As noted previously, the Fulani forces had recruited thousands of people to run for these Independence Party positions in New York city. A county organization that has elected committee members from a majority of precincts in that county cannot be dissolved by the state leadership of the party.

The McKay letter congratulates the newly-elected member, and then suggests that now the newly-elected member is obliged to do volunteer work for the party, ringing doorbells and doing other work. The letter also suggests that if the newly-elected member does not wish to do this work, he or she may return a form in the enclosed self-addressed stamped envelope, declining membership.

It is not yet known if this tactic will prevent the New York city county organizations from retaining enough members to be safe from dissolution.

Two significant election law changes made some time ago have just come to my awareness…South Dakota banned fusion in 1999, and no one who cares about this seems to have known about that. Also, in 2001, Vermont lowered the petition requirement for independent candidates for all statewide office (except president) from 1,000 signatures, to 250 signatures. It is not known why this happened.

The Libertarian Party of Vermont nominated nine candidates on September 13, 2006. Seven were running for the legislature and two for local office. Four of them mailed their acceptance forms on the morning of September 14. The deadline for the Secretary of State to receive these forms was September 15. Normally, all intra-Vermont postal mail is delivered in one day. However, in this case, none of the forms filed by the four arrived until September 16, and the Secretary of State is taking a hard-line position and denying them ballot access.

Three other Libertarians running for the legislature did not have deadline problems. They include two with the label “Libertarian, Republican” and one with the label “Libertarian”. Among the four legislative candidates who are being denied ballot status, three will still be on the ballot, but as “Republican” instead of the desired label “Libertarian, Republican”.

The Libertarian Party will continue to be a ballot-qualified party in Vermont. Vermont determines party status by whether it is organized in 10 towns, not on how many votes it polls or how many candidates it runs. Thanks to Hardy Machia for correcting the original version of this post (with his comment below). The party has not had any intent to run any statewide nominees this year.