Yesterday, a U.S. District Court judge upheld a 2014 New Hampshire law that makes it illegal for a group to circulate a petition in odd years to get itself on the ballot.
The New Hampshire party petition is one of the most difficult in the nation, requiring 3% of the last gubernatorial vote and providing no cover for petitioning at stores, where most petition signatures are collected. Adding the shorter time frame to these burdens is a thinly-veiled attempt by entrenched politicians to keep competition off the ballot.
The national GOP submitted an amicus brief in defense of the new law.
The Libertarian Party has managed only twice to successfully pull in the required signatures since the law was instituted in 1996. Both times the petition took a year to complete. Now the petitioning time will be cut in half.
No other party has managed to successfully complete a party petition in this time period.
To complete a party petition for 2016, the LP will need to collect 14,566 signatures.
A petition for only the 2016 LP Presidential nominee will require 3,000 signatures.
