Ballot Access Drive: Libertarians hand in first batch of signatures
DURHAM (Feb. 22) -- The Libertarian Party of North Carolina made its
first deposit in its quadrennial ballot access drive when it delivered the
first batch of 18,754 signatures to county boards of election Feb. 8.
North Carolina has one of the most restrictive ballot access laws in
the United States. A party must submit valid petition signatures equal to
two percent of the number of voters in the most recent gubernatorial
contest to gain or retain a ballot listing.
Once a party passes the petitioning hurdle to get on the ballot, its
candidate for president or governor must garner ten percent of the vote in
order to remain a qualified party in NC. Otherwise, the party is
decertified and voters registered as Libertarian are notified they will be
switched to Unaffiliated.
Since neither their presidential nor gubernatorial candidate achieved
the ten percent threshold in November's election, North Carolina
Libertarians immediately began their ninth petition drive in order to
remain a qualified political party in the state.
The 18,754 signatures submitted this week represents a small portion
of the actual signatures needed," said Barbara Howe, state LP chair.
The party estimates it needs 69,734 valid signatures. Since each signature
must be verified as belonging to a registered voter, the party's goal is
to actually collect at least 100,000 raw signatures.
In our last drive, we collected over 92,000 signatures in order to
obtain the necessary 58, 841 valid signatures to satisfy the state's
requirements," said Howe.
Any registered voter can sign the petition. Libertarians often
cooperate with other so-called third parties in their ballot access
efforts.
Despite having to overcome such a huge obstacle, the NC Libertarian
Party has been on the ballot almost continuously since 1988.
And we will be for some time to come," Howe said.
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