The Libertarian National Committee’s Business List, a public read-only email group maintained by the party to allow public viewing of party business and discussions between national committee members, went offline without explanation this week.
Independent Political Report initially discovered that the Business List became inaccessible on Tuesday morning, with attempts to access it yielding a response from Google indicating that it is unavailable. However, the public can still access past votes if they have a direct link to the specific ballot spreadsheet. As of Wednesday morning, the list remains offline.
The Libertarian National Committee created the Business List as a transparency tool to allow party members to observe deliberations and open discussions among committee members. The list is also referenced in Article 7 of the party’s bylaws, first introduced and adopted in the 2012 bylaws adopted at the Libertarian National Convention in Las Vegas and included in each subsequent edition.
“The Secretary or a designee shall promptly post notice for each session of the National Committee; any National Committee proposed agendas; and approved minutes of each convention and open National Committee session to a permanent archive section on the Party’s website. Any person may record the National Committee’s proceedings while in open session, or subscribe to a read-only email list on which National Committee votes are recorded,” the bylaws state regarding the Business List.
It is currently unknown whether the list’s removal was accidental or intentional, or if the party is experiencing an ongoing technical issue. The party has managed previous public Business Lists, the most recent of which was retired in February following an internal transition to a new Microsoft system that was later discovered to present accessibility issues for external users attempting to access it. That list, covering the Libertarian National Committee’s business from 2020 through early this year, remains publicly available at the time of this article.
While I am not sure of the reason, a new version of the list is back.
https://groups.google.com/g/lnc-public
And here I was thinking it was a problem on my end resulting from Google’s war on ad blockers or something.
I have to say, whether accidental or intentional, this is not a great look; and the timing could, as Sean points out, not have been more damaging. Could it be that Harlos still has some control over the mailing list and either took it down or is engaged in a struggle for control of it? That would be in keeping with its behavior so far.
Oddly timed if not intentional, given how they just ousted their Secretary and put Malagon in charge of the office.
Note also that the LNC run website’s list of elected Libertarians just gives a [table id=20 /] error as of about a month ago. Lots of (redactions? incompetence?) going on with the websites.