Matt Waters, 2018 Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia
This November, Virginians will be able to cast their ballots for Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Matt Waters, whose campaign planks include eliminating the federal income tax, immediate removal of all U.S. troops from Korea and Japan, eliminating the Drug Enforcement Administration, and transferring education from the federal government to parents and the states.
Waters’s petition signatures were validated this month, thus triggering a three-way race. From the July 6 article in Ballot Access News (“Virginia State Board of Elections Says Libertarian U.S. Senate Petition is Valid,” by Richard Winger):
On July 6, the Virginia State Board of Elections determined that Matt Waters has enough valid signatures to be on the November 2018 ballot for U.S. Senate. He is the Libertarian nominee. He needed 10,000 valid signatures. The only other candidates on the ballot for U.S. Senate are the Democratic incumbent, Tim Kaine, and the Republican nominee, Corey Stewart.
The Libertarian Party has never been a qualified party in Virginia. The last qualified third party in Virginia was the Reform Party, but it lost its status in November 1997. The only states in which the Democratic and Republican Parties have been the only ballot-qualified parties continuously during the last 20 years are New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia (however, the only qualified [alternative] parties in Georgia were only qualified for statewide office, not district or county office). The problem in Virginia is that a party is defined as a group that got 10 percent in any statewide race in either of the last two statewide elections. Bills have been introduced repeatedly to lower the 10 percent [threshold, but they have always failed] to pass.
The election will be held on November 6.
Learn more at Waters’s campaign website: MattWaters.com
