Pennsylvania elections officials say as of today, there are 44,826 registered Libertarians and 10,343 registered Greens. It isn’t possible yet to calculate the percentages because the state hasn’t given me the total number of registered voters in the state.
A year ago, there were 39,760 Libertarians and 8,350 Greens.
On October 28, U.S. District Court Judge James R. Sweeney, a Trump appointee, issued an order in Indiana Green Party v Sullivan, s.d., 1:22cv-518. This is the case that challenges the Indiana ballot access laws for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. The order rejects the state’s request to dismiss the case without even holding a trial. The state said that because the Indiana petition (2% of the last vote cast for Secretary of State) was upheld in the Seventh Circuit in 1985 (when the 2% petition was only two years old), therefore the case should be dismissed. But the judge wrote that “it has been 37 years since Hall was decided. Both the law and the facts have changed…It is far too early for the Court to say that no relief is possible on the facts as alleged.”
On October 29, a zoom meeting was held to organize a political party in New Mexico that is in alignment with the Libertarian National Committee. The existing ballot-qualified Libertarian Party in New Mexico and the national committee are estranged from each other.
Although the new party desires to qualify for the ballot, it cannot start to circulate a petition until it chooses a name. The new group is tentatively calling itself the Free Libertarian Party, but the group is aware that state law won’t permit that label. The law says, “No political party shall adopt any party name or party emblem which is the same as, similar to, or which conceivably can be confused with or mistaken for the party name or party emblem of any other qualified political party in New Mexico.”
The existing ballot-qualified Libertarian Party in New Mexico nominates by primary, so it is possible for members of both groups to engage in contested primary battles in the primary, should they desire to do so.
Ballot Access News
October 2022 – Volume 38, Number 5
| This issue was printed on white paper. |
Table of Contents
On October 27, a Florida State Appeals Court removed a local initiative from the ballot in Orange County. Florida Association of Realtors v Orange County, 5D22-2277. The vote was 2-1. See this story. The initiative concerns rent control.
Because the ballots have already been printed and voting is already underway, it is impossible to physically remove the initiative from the ballot. Instead the votes will not be counted.
