Source: Ballot Access News

On August 10, Ralph Nader filed this opening brief in Nader v Federal Election Commission. The Democratic Party and many of its close allies spent millions of dollars to remove Nader from ballots in 18 states in 2004, but didn’t follow federal campaign laws when it made these expenditures. Nader had then complained to the FEC, but the FEC not only didn’t enforce the law, it didn’t even notify the Democratic Party about the Nader complaint. Nader then sued the FEC in U.S. District Court, but the U.S. District Read more »

Source: Independent Political Report

In an email received by IPR Gary Johnson 2012 State Director for Delaware Steven Newton reports:

It is bad enough when the Presidential Debate Commission attempts to stifle political discourse by potentially excluding Gary Johnson, but now Delaware has its own debate controversy.

Ralph Begleiter (formerly of CNN) is the Director of the University of Delaware Center for Political Communication, which is co-hosting the candidate debates for statewide offices. Citing the Pew Center’s Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

On August 11, the American Independent Party (AIP) nominated Tom Hoefling for President at its state convention in Sacramento, California. The convention was in the meeting room of Perkos Restaurant, 925 Third Street.

Only seven delegates were present when the vote was taken: Markham Robinson, Mary Robinson, Mark Seidenberg, Rev. Wiley Drake, Dennis Aguirre, John Robertson, and Phelps Hobart. A majority of votes Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

On August 10, briefs on both sides were filed simultaneously with the Arizona Supreme Court in Save Our Vote v Bennett, the case over whether the initiative for a top-two open primary should be on the November 2012 ballot. Reply briefs are due early next week.

Amicus curiae briefs on the side of the proponents were submitted by the Southern Arizona Leadership Council and the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP), also known as Independent Voting. Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

The petition deadline has passed in Alaska. The only petitions received involving the presidential race this season are the Green Party and Americans Elect Party petitions. The Americans Elect petition was submitted months ago.

The four ballot-qualified parties on in Alaska are: Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and Alaskan Independence Party. No one knows which presidential candidate the Alaskan Independence Party will Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

The deadline for independent presidential petitions in Ohio has now passed. Two independent presidential candidates submitted petitions: Richard Duncan, and Michael Vargo. The vice-presidential candidate for Duncan is Ricky Johnson; the v-p for Vargo is Jeff Angeletti. Duncan lives in Aurora, Ohio; and Vargo lives in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. Duncan also ran as an independent presidential candidate in Ohio in 2008, and got 3,905 votes in Ohio. He was not on the ballot in any other state in 2008. Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

North Carolina is one of the thirteen states in which the state income tax form lets taxpayers choose to help any particular ballot-qualified party. This year, the state recently sent these amounts to each of the three ballot-qualified parties: Democratic $1,456,436; Republican $898,532; Libertarian $96,664.

Amounts are larger in presidential election years than in other years, because the state policy is to hold back some of the money in non-presidential years, and release it in presidential election years. Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

The deadline has now passed for independent presidential candidates, and the presidential nominees of unqualified parties, to submit petitions in the District of Columbia. The Libertarian Party submitted the only presidential petition.

The three ballot-qualified parties in D.C., which did not need to submit a petition, are the Democratic, Republican, and Green Parties. Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

Virgil Goode, the Constitution Party presidential candidate, will appear on the Washington state ballot. The Secretary of State’s office had already validated all the other presidential petitions this year, but did not finish validating the Constitution Party petition until August 9. Thanks to Gary Odom for this news.

The petitions that had already been validated in that state are Libertarian, Green, Justice, Socialist Workers, and Party for Socialism and Liberation. Read more »

Source: Libertarian Party (LP.org)

by R. Lee Wrights

“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”

- Ayn Rand

When it comes to individual rights, no number is greater than one. One person, one hundred people, one Read more »