The Libertarian Party of Illinois has recruited a fantastic and highly active slate of candidates for statewide office and they worked tirelessly to get them well over the 25,000 petition signatures needed to appear on the November ballot. In fact, they gathered over 43,000 signatures in just 90 days!

But the victory was short lived. The IL GOP challenged those signatures and sent a team of staffers and interns to the Illinois State Board of Elections to ensure that the voices of those 43,000 people were silenced.

The process for defending those signatures is long and unnerving. The Libertarian Party of Illinois needed to answer the GOP’s attack by gathering volunteers at the state election board’s office in Springfield for several days. From 9am to 7pm you sit in a chair, petitions and GOP objections in hand, working with the election board staffer to locate the petitioner in voter rolls. Arguing with the GOP interns over matching signatures, legal name changes, and whether LSD in Chicago actually means Lake Shore Drive.

Knowing they would not be able to match the GOP’s presence, they called on us for help. And we had to act on short notice.  We committed ourselves to the state party’s efforts, and we brought out the big guns. We sent in LNCC Executive Director Evan McMahon last week for a few days.

Evan returned home this past Friday, just in time to celebrate his nephew’s first birthday, and is already back on the road heading to Springfield. Evan will stay in the area for the rest of the week. Including a couple of days to assist Lex Green, LP Illinois Political Director, with paper work and preparing documentation for any additional legal challenges.

The Libertarian Party of Indiana, being a good neighbor, not only sent their State Chair Dan Drexler for a day of assistance, but they also helped pay part of the expenses for Evan’s first week in Springfield.

Of course, placing Evan in the field for this task comes at a price.  There are additional costs we bear to cover his transportation, room and board. Then there is the opportunity cost. While Evan is in Illinois, he has limited time to address the day-to-day tasks of the LNCC.

We are here to turn the tide and change the course of America. And our ability to accomplish this depends on you. With your help we can make a dramatic impact on the liberty movement.

If you believe as I do that providing practical support for Libertarian candidates and local parties is need for our success, I ask you to stand with me and our mission by underwriting our efforts.

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Very Truly Yours,

Mark W. Rutherford, Chairman
Libertarian National Campaign Committee

A simple way to solve that, and get your campaign rolling at the same time is to collect signatures door to door by working off a registered voter list.  That way everyone who signs can quickly be verified as a registered voter and eligible signer.

How do you do it?

1) Contact the proper voter registration office and purchase the full voter registration list.  You’re going to need it anyway.  In many cases you must file a statement of candidacy first, so get that out of the way too.

2) Your best bet is voters who are Libertarians and those registered with, or vote in the primary of, the party opposite the incumbent.  Just tell them, “My name is _________ and I will be running as a Libertarian against (Republican/Democrat) _________.”

3) When you turn in your signatures, you can now also include a direct list of each signer, in order, with their verified voter registration.  That makes it harder for the government to disqualify your signers.

And not only does this let you work the kinks out of your door-to-door operation early, you can also ask these people if they’d like to volunteer or donate, and if they’d like a yard sign when they come in.

Not only can you lock up your ballot access early, you’ll be hitting the ground running with door-to-door practice and an early list of supporters.

“‘The law places a severe burden on the plaintiffs’ freedom of speech and is not narrowly tailored to promote a compelling state interest,’ such as preventing election fraud, wrote U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney.”

“He ruled on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Virginia and Darryl Bonner, a Pennsylvania resident who is a professional circulator of petitions. The judge barred the three members of the State Board of Elections from implementing the state residency restriction on people who circulate petitions.”

And Libertarians are getting better at raising money.

“The Libertarian Party of Connecticut has raised $15,000  in the past few weeks, a record-breaking amount,” the Norwich Bulletin reports.

“The party, known for its support of limited government, had never raised more than $10,000 in any single year, Reale said. Fundraising through an ongoing ballot access drive is expected to surpass $60,000, said Reale, who is also the party’s candidate for Congress in Connecticut’s 2nd District.”

Virginia law requires a candidate seeking a slot on a statewide ballot to secure 10,000 signatures, including at least 400 from each congressional district and prohibits out-of-state residents from circulating petitions.

The ACLU brief (found here) argues the state has the ability to subpoena out-of-state circulators if fraud is suspected. It also mentions a 2011 Nebraska court decision in Citizens in Charge v Gale striking down that state’s law prohibiting out-of-state circulators. Other briefs filed in Perry’s case had not mentioned that precedent.

“The new version, mandated by the 2011 session of the legislature, says the two largest parties in the state should be listed on the voter registration form with a checkbox for each. But if anyone wants to register into any other ballot-qualified party, or an unqualified party, or as an independent, the voter must write in that choice in the “other” box and check that box.”

The Arizona Libertarian Party argues the form is discriminatory as it, like the Republican and Democrat parties, is ballot-qualified, yet voters may only register to vote as Libertarians by writing in the party’s name.

UPDATE: here is the complaint.

You can see it here.

In all, 28 Libertarians were elected, or re-elected, to office, including six in partisan races.

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“The political parties also submitted evidence that even sophisticated reporters who cover politics constantly refer to various Washington state politicians as “Democrats” or “Republicans”, never as individuals who “prefer” one of those parties. The state and the Grange ridiculed the idea that a law might be unconstitutional just because of what newspapers say. However, one of the judges noted that this case bears some similarity to trademark disputes, and that when courts hear a case on whether one company has infringed on the trademark of another company, the courts are supposed to look at all available evidence about public opinion. A decision will probably be out in the next three months,” BAN reports.

“Under Proposition 14, approved by voters in 2010, all statewide and presidential candidates will run in a single primary that is open to all registered voters regardless of their political party. The top two vote-getters will then move on to the general election.”

“This is really a lawsuit about keeping the field of political debate open,” said attorney Michael Siegel. “Proposition 14 narrows the political debate by saying only two candidates can participate in general elections, and we think that’s unconstitutional because many Supreme Court cases have said you can’t have a barrier to small parties competing in the general election.”

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