The Libertarian Party is set to once more become a recognized political party in Massachusetts after Al Ozonoff, a candidate of the Unified Libertarians of Massachusetts, easily exceeded the number of votes needed for recognition in his race for state auditor.
Ozonoff, the organization’s membership director, appeared on Tuesday’s ballot after petitioning under the Libertarian designation. As of early Wednesday morning, unofficial election results tallied by the Associated Press showed that he earned 339,522 votes, or roughly 16.2 percent of the vote, in his statewide bid against incumbent Democratic Auditor Diana DiZoglio.
Under Massachusetts law, a political party can qualify for recognition when its candidate receives at least 3 percent of the votes cast for a statewide office. Alternatively, it can qualify by enrolling at least 1 percent of the state’s registered voters. Going into Election Day, Massachusetts recognized only the Democratic and Republican parties.
With 84 percent of the vote counted, Ozonoff’s share is more than five times the minimum required for recognition, practically guaranteeing the Libertarian Party will regain recognized status once results are certified. That status brings several major changes for Libertarians, including restrictions on which voters can sign their candidates’ nomination papers and generally requiring their statewide and legislative candidates to seek nomination through party primaries.
It would also give the Libertarian Party a significant boon entering the 2028 presidential election cycle, allowing it to once again organize a statutory state committee, which could then nominate the party’s presidential electors without requiring its national ticket to collect 10,000 signatures.
Libertarians previously regained recognized party status following the 2022 election, when Cris Crawford received approximately 23 percent of the vote in the state treasurer race. However, the party lost that recognition following the 2024 presidential election, when Libertarian nominee Chase Oliver received roughly 0.5 percent of the statewide vote.
The Libertarian National Committee’s Ballot Access Committee had originally proposed spending $45,000 to help Charlie Larkin, another Libertarian, collect the 5,000 signatures needed to qualify for the statewide ballot, but that proposal came before the Unified Libertarians, the Libertarian Party’s recognized Massachusetts affiliate, had the opportunity to formally decide which candidate it would support.
Given that significance for the 2028 presidential cycle, the Unified Libertarians expressed concern in a report shared with the LNC that whichever candidate received national support could influence the makeup of that committee and future ballot access decisions. The state organization later asked the LNC to shift its support to Ozonoff, which it ultimately did.
During the 2024 election cycle, the then-existing Libertarian State Committee established following Crawford’s performance consisted of members from both the Unified Libertarians and the former Libertarian Association of Massachusetts, which is now called the Liberty Alliance of Massachusetts and is an affiliate of the Liberal Party USA. The committee initially said it was considering several different options, but ultimately placed the Libertarian ticket of Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat on the presidential ballot.
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