September 8 was the deadline for independent candidates to file for the North Dakota ballot. Two candidates submitted signatures for US Senate. One is the Libertarian nominee, Roland Riemers. The other is a true independent, James Germalic, who was also an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Oklahoma in 2002.
On September 8, the New York State Board of Elections rejected a challenge to the Libertarian Party’s use of a picture of the Statue of Liberty on the ballot. New York and about 13 other states print party logos on their ballots. A voter had challenged the party’s continued use of the Statue of Liberty, on the grounds that the logo confused voters, since the Conservative Party’s logo is the torch of the Statue of Liberty. The State Board found no merit in the challenge. Both parties have been using the same logos in New York since 1988.
The federal court that is handling the New Mexico ballot access case will hold a hearing on September 29. Libertarian Party of New Mexico v Vigil-Giron challenges New Mexico’s requirement that after a party is qualified (to nominate candidates by convention), then it must submit a separate petition for each candidate so nominated. The party argues that since it already submitted a petition to qualify the party itself, there is no state interest in requiring any more petitioning.
The Labor Party petition for South Carolina ballot access has enough valid signatures, and the party will be on the ballot in that state for 2007 and 2008. This is the first time the Labor Party (founded in 1990) has ever qualified for the ballot in any state. The party is backed by some AFL-CIO unions.
For the second election in a row, the New Hampshire Libertarian statewide petition has failed to obtain enough valid signatures. The party’s candidate for Governor will not appear on the ballot. He needed 3,000 and lacked 350 valid. The party’s candidate for US House in the 2nd district, and three legislative candidates, did have enough valid signatures.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court is currently pondering whether the state’s ballot access procedures violate the State Constitution. Although 3,000 signatures sounds easy, New Hampshire requires petitioning groups to submit signatures to each town clerk, and then requires the petitioning groups to collect the checked signatures and transport them to the Secretary of State. The logistics of all this transportation adds to the difficulty of the process.
