4 thoughts on “Secretary of State certifies Ohio Libertarians as a minor party”

1. paulie Post authorJuly 12, 2018 at 16:06

   lnc-votes@hq.lp.org via googlegroups.com
   4:02 PM (1 minute ago)
   to Alicia, Libertarian
   This is excellent news. For those of you who are relatively new to the
   LNC, this plot in Ohio has dragged on for a long time, and it’s full of
   the dirtiest, most underhanded abuse of power by the GOP establishment
   there. The GOP governor didn’t want competition on the ballot which he
   thought would pull away some of his votes.

   Without researching, off the top of my head, maybe I can approximate
   the story somewhat. It’s a complex plot, but LPOH had maintained this
   status for many years, and they lost it over a dispute about whether a
   contractor had to fill in a blank listing an “employer” on some
   candidate petitions. There was a legal fight over it, and it went to
   some non-judge administrative resolution process. The LPOH had an
   attorney who was able to fish out evidence that the decider in that
   hearing initially wrote and was planning to issue a ruling in favor of
   the LPOH. Then he got a phone call at the 11th hour (was it from the
   SOS office? or some other such operative of the governor’s) that leaned
   on the hearing officer, and suddenly he changed his mind and ruled the
   other way. With that candidate disqualified, the LPOH couldn’t
   maintain their party status. The legislature has played games with the
   laws trying to keep the LP from re-establishing their status. So this
   petition drive may have “only” been 16 months, but the bigger picture
   for why it was necessary is a much longer, ugly story.
   -Alicia
2. paulie Post authorJuly 12, 2018 at 16:24

   Anticipating court challenge from OH NSGOP. Dunno how that process works in Ohio but in other states where we have had to defend petitions from such court challenges that process requires lots of LP volunteers to go over the signatures and prove that any sig GOP disputes is in fact valid. Some places that has to be done in person in front of govt employees and in PA it has to be done in court. We may need to help recruit an army of volunteers if and when that happens.

   Republicans have spent at least $750,000 that we know of to prevent our ballot access in Ohio since 2014 and we are fully anticipating they will spend more. We can hope they won’t but that would be a pleasant surprise. Let’s celebrate the win and prepare to defend it in court if and when we must.
3. paulie Post authorJuly 12, 2018 at 16:52

   BAN:

   On July 12, the Ohio Secretary of State announced that the Libertarian Party petition for 2018 is valid. The Libertarian Party is now either a qualified party, or has a statewide nominee on the ballot even though the party is not a qualified party, in every state except Alabama, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington.

   NY and PA petitions are going on right now. AL was cancelled but we do have some district candidates who managed to make the ballot. WA has district candidates who may advance out of the Top Two primary if that has not happened yet. Not sure about RI.

   I think Richard may have forgotten about ND in that list? Also, isn’t TN running all of theirs as independents?
4. paulie Post authorJuly 12, 2018 at 17:54

   Chris Wiest 60,294 valid signatures are recognized. Is a lot of damn signatures to disqualify. I want in the legal case if there is one. Because that challenge needs to be sanctioned.