From the LNC Votes mirror list:
There will be an Executive Committee teleconference on Wednesday, March 30, to revisit the subject of Pennsylvania ballot access.
Date: Wednesday, March 30
Time: 9:30 p.m. Eastern / 6:30 p.m. Pacific
Dial-in: (217) 258-5588
Guest Pin Code: 207730
1. At conference time, dial the Conference Dial-In number above.
2. At the prompt, enter the Access Code followed by the # key.
3. You will hear music until the Moderator enters the call.
To mute your individual phone line, press * 6.
To un-mute your individual phone line, press * 7.
Alicia Mattson
LNC Secretary
At this time no IPR editor is planning on being in attendance, so live-blogging by a commenter would be appreciated.
Well, if we don’t get ballot access this year I’m moving!
Still waiting to receive my petition forms in the mail.
They probably mailed them to Jed Ziggler! 😉
If I heard correctly, the LNC has now impounded close to $150,000 for IL, PA, and CT ballot access, out of less than $60,000 cash on hand. The expectation is that more money will come in before the LNC needs to make more payments.
Jed, I will contact you via Facebook.
Sincerely,
Steve Scheetz
What happened? I for once was out – at a Adam Lambert concert
It’s a reasonable expectation.
Here are some questions that ought to be asked:
1) The Libertarian Party has multiple ballot access deadlines coming up over the next few months. Why are they taking so long to get started in Connecticut and Pennsylvania and other places when ballot access deadlines are looming and lots of time has already been wasted?
2) Is the LNC’s ballot access budget realistically keeping up with the market rate for petitions (note that there are several statewide petitions circulating right now in California that are paying $4-$5.50 per signature, and note that there are and will be lots of other groups that are paying for signatures around the country), and when is the last time it was adjusted for inflation? LP ballot access ended up going way over budget in 2012, so why should we believe that this will not happen this time (the more time that is wasted, the greater the odds of this happening are)?
3) Which Libertarian activists do they have lined up to gather ballot access signatures? I’d like to see a list of names, along with some proof that the people in question are actually Libertarians. Approximately what percentage of LP ballot access money is going to be steered toward non-libertarian mercenaries, and what percentage is going to go toward actual Libertarians (in 2012 at least 76% of LNC ballot access funds went to non-libertarian mercenaries, with only maybe 24% of it going to actual Libertarians)? Will multiple time low validity producers from past elections be rehired?
4) The number one obstacle in executing LP ballot access drives has been petition circulators getting run out of locations that carry public foot traffic (by the police, security guards, venue managers, etc…). There are already laws on the books and multiple court precedents that are supposed to protect our right to go to places that carry public foot traffic to ask people to sign ballot access petitions, yet these laws and court precedents are being ignored in most states. What specific actions has the LNC taken to address this problem, and in what states have they taken these actions? I would like to see a list of which jurisdictions the LNC or its employees have contacted about this problem, and I’d like to see the names and phone numbers of which government officials they have contacted, and if any letters have been written to government officials about this problem, I’d like to see copies of the letters. What has been the response from the government officials to this problem so far, assuming that anyone from the LNC or employed by the LNC has actually taken any steps to solve this re-occurring problem? Is the LNC prepared to take any actions against government officials that interfere with our right to go to venues that carry public foot traffic for the purpose of asking the public to sign our ballot access petitions, and if so, what actions are the LNC planning to take? Petition circulators being run out of public venues by the police, security guards, venue managers, etc…, is a big factor in causing ballot drives to fail, or to run over cost.
“George Phillies
March 30, 2016 at 21:48
If I heard correctly, the LNC has now impounded close to $150,000 for IL, PA, and CT ballot access, out of less than $60,000 cash on hand. The expectation is that more money will come in before the LNC needs to make more payments.”
I heard that the LNC recently allocated $20,000 for a new website. If this is true, wouldn’t it have been better to reserve this $20,000 for ballot access, being that ballot access is a more pressing issue? If it is so important to get a new website, wouldn’t it be better to put this off until after all of the ballot access drives for 2016 were completed? if the party is having trouble coming up with the necessary funds to get on the ballot, why would it allocate $20,000 to a luxury item (I call it a luxury item, since the party already has an adequate website, so I don’t see how a website is a pressing need)?
I agree with you Andy about the spending of money for a new website. The current one is alright and ballot access is critical with deadlines coming due.
I also agree with Andy. Revamping the website is not a priority.
“George Whitfield
March 31, 2016 at 17:30
I agree with you Andy about the spending of money for a new website. The current one is alright and ballot access is critical with deadlines coming due.”
I’ve been told by some people who know website design that this is a ridiculous price to pay (as in too high) as well.
We are in the process of paying close to three times list price for a modern copier/fax/etc machine; why shouldn’t we also pay too much for a web page?
“George Phillies
March 31, 2016 at 18:55
We are in the process of paying close to three times list price for a modern copier/fax/etc machine; why shouldn’t we also pay too much for a web page?”
Why are they willing to overpay for things that are not really pressing needs for the party, but when it comes to ballot access, which IS a current pressing need for the party, they are trying to skimp on paying, and are actually putting ballot access at risk by under-budgeting?
Underbudgeting for ballot access? It’s not that they have a lot more money to spend at this point. Budgeting money you for sure lack will not change how much you can spend. The major issues were ones that Nick Sarwark inherited. A competent LNC would have started putting aside money in 2013 for ballot access, and told people how the money would be used.
Assuming I understood what was being said — the connection was to put it charitably less than ideal — it sounded as though Howell had tried a PA email drive to raise money for ballot access, and generated $500. To her credit, this is much better than what happened in MA last year, when we tried the same thing and generated more like $100. Assuming I heard it correctly — there was a lot of noise in the background — member enthusiasm for this sort of effort has sagged.
George, more money would be available for ballot access if they were not overpaying for a copier, and for a website that the party does not really need right now.