Dear Libertarian,
I always enjoy sharing with you news of our victories. Often we have so many urgent things going on that we are slow to share them with you, or we don’t, and I apologize for that.
One of our most recent is a ballot access victory in South Dakota. A federal judge ruled South Dakota’s laws regulating third-party ballot access to be unconstitutional. He said these laws violate the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the plaintiffs: the Libertarian Party and Constitution Party.
Stephen Pevar from the ACLU was the lead attorney. He was quoted in the press as saying, “South Dakota has one of the most, if not the most, restrictive ballot-access laws in the United states.” We are proud of this win and thankful to Stephen for his work on this case.
Ballot access is the most important function for our party. It is the business of getting candidates on ballots. We’ve made so much progress over the years by chipping away at these barriers bit by bit, all around the country. Every state has different laws and challenges. Sometimes friendly legislators help us out and get bills passed to lower requirements. Sometimes we have to do mega petitioning drives (like the one in Ohio right now) to overcome excessively high barriers. Sometimes we have candidates who cross thresholds that retain ballot access. Sometimes we sue. And so on.
Throughout the election cycle, there are Libertarians working very hard to constantly improve our ballot access all across the country so that we can have Libertarian candidates on as many ballots as possible in the next election.
This is heroic work.
We have the nations experts on ballot access working for you, right now, to ensure your right to participate in the political process.
A few days ago, we emailed you about Ohio. The national party has targeted Ohio for extra help because the barriers there are so grossly unfair. We are close to finishing that drive but still need your help to cross the finish line and move on to focus on other states like Tennessee and New York.
Please help make this happen by donating to our Ballot Access Fund.
Nicholas Sarwark
Chair, Libertarian National Committee
