Richard Winger is reporting at Ballot Access News that three different parties have submitted their petitions to appear on the statewide ballots in New York. The Libertarian Party, IPR has already reported about. The other two are the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Constitution Party.
On or before the August 21 deadline, three independent presidential petitions were submitted in New York. The petition for Virgil Goode has approximately 23,000 signatures. The petition for Peta Lindsay of the Party for Socialism and Liberation has approximately 26,500 signatures. The number of signatures for Gary Johnson is approximately 25,500 signatures. The state requires 15,000.
In New York, as in half the states, candidates listed on independent petitions are free to choose a partisan label other than just the word “independent.”
The Green Party is a ballot-qualified party in New York, so did not need to submit a petition. The other three ballot-qualified minor parties in New York are expected to cross-endorse the major party nominees.
No minor party statewide petition has been successfully challenged in New York since 1976, when Eugene McCarthy’s independent presidential petition was challenged.
The deadline for challenges to petitions is today, August 24th, at 5pm local time.
No challenges were received by the State Board of Elections as of Friday afternoon (last day to file general objection), but the statute permits filing by mail so we have to wait a few more days to make sure nothing was postmarked by Friday.
Almost all of the Constitution Party’s signatures were obtained in the final two weeks of petitioning. No idea as to validity rate, but their organization, unlike the Libertarian Party of New York, was asleep for at least the first half of the petitioning period.
Gee, I wonder if the Republicans will challenge the Libertarians and the Constitutionalists in New York since it is such a battleground state. Oh wait… it isn’t. Funny how that works.