Dear Libertarian,
In Ohio, election law is the rule of the land and applied equally to all….except Libertarians.
Let me tell you more…
Last Friday, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected our lawsuit over the Secretary of State’s improper decision to prevent our ballot access. The Secretary of State had ruled that the vote totals received by our Presidential nominee didn’t count towards our ballot access.
Ohio law has a 3% threshold for a group of voters who nominated a candidate to be recognized as a political party. A group of voters nominated Gary Johnson for President and he got 3.17% of the vote. So by the plain reading of the law, that group of voters should be recognized as a political party.
Gary Johnson was nominated as an independent because Ohio Republicans kicked the Libertarian Party off the ballot. But the Republican Secretary of State won’t recognize that group of independent voters because they are Libertarians and want to be called the Libertarian Party.
So the Ohio Libertarian Party filed suit in December and last week the Ohio Supreme Court ruled 6-1 against us.
This was disappointing but not at all surprising. We knew from a long history of dealing with officials in Ohio that the Ohio Supreme Court would likely twist itself into a pretzel to defend the Secretary of State’s abuse of the law.
So, we are going to do what Libertarians do. We are going to roll up our sleeves and continue to fight this injustice and stand up to the bullies of big government.
We will not allow these tyrannical bureaucrats in Ohio to keep us off the ballot.
We’ll do what has to be done to make sure that in 2018 every Ohioan will have Libertarian candidates on their ballot.
This will require a LOT of signed petitions. That work is already underway.
It will cost the national party $130,000 and the Ohio Libertarian Party roughly the same. But, together, we’ll make it happen.
We have the national experts on ballot access working on our behalf to make progress in Ohio and other states. We are determined to secure ballot access in every state and DC for every election from here on out. It is the most important function of the national party. But we can only do this with your help.
If you’d like to join us in fighting these bullies in Ohio and other states, please give generously to our Ballot Access Fund.
As always, thank you for your support of the Libertarian Party.
Nicholas Sarwark
Chair, Libertarian National Committee
