In spite of the crippling barrier posed by top-two primaries in California that serves to keep third party candidates off the ballot, six California Libertarians will be on the primary ballot on June 3 as write-in candidates, and one is virtually guaranteed a spot on the November ballot.
The six candidates are:
- Jose Casteneda — Board of Equalization District 3
- Gail Lightfoot — U.S. House 23
- Patrick Hogan — State Assembly District 5
- Ted Brown — State Assembly District 41
- John Farr — State Assembly District 60
- Mike Paster — State Assembly District 75
As long as Patrick Hogan gets at least one write-in vote in the primary, he will appear on the November ballot against incumbent Frank Bigelow, because nobody filed to run against Bigelow and Hogan is the only person who filed to run as a write-in candidate for that race.
California has a top-two primary in which all candidates must run against each other, with the top two candidates receiving the most votes in each race advancing to the Novmeber ballot. Top-two primaries make it very difficult for candidates from parties other than the Democrats and Republicans to appear on general election ballot.
In 2010, before the implementation of the top-two primary, the LPCA had 57 partisan candidates on the November ballot. In 2012, with the top-two primary in force, there were no California Libertarian partisan candidates on the general election ballot
