The Green Party’s presidential candidate, Jill Stein, has already qualified for the OH ballot because the party’s Gubernatorial candidate in 2014 won enough votes in that general election to be put on the ballot without gathering petition signatures.
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Libertarians are suing Husted and the state for changing the rules, which makes it more hard for minor parties to run candidates in OH, and for throwing Earl off the ballot in 2014.
In the case of OH, the LP placed Earl’s name on petitions last March, as it began the process of collecting enough signatures for the party’s candidate to appear on the 2016 presidential ballot.
However, Ohio Secretary of State spokesman Joshua Eck said it’s unclear whether Ohio law allows presidential candidates to be swapped out like that.
Wednesday at 4pm is the deadline for submitting petition signatures for independent presidential candidates for the fall ballot in Ohio.
“We are not aware of any time in OH history where a candidate has filed petitions to run for president then asked for someone else’s name to be put on the ballot and should that be the case here, our office is going to need time to review the legality of that in state law”.
Mr. Eck said the secretary of state’s office is looking into whether such a switch is possible.
LP Chairman Nicholas Sarwark tells Reason that despite the Office of the Secretary of State’s general unhelpfulness in providing the requisite forms to replace the candidate, this story is a “big pile of nothing”.
MPR News host Kerri Miller spoke with the National Libertarian party chairperson, Nicholas Sarwark, about his party’s platform and efforts this year.
Even if Johnson and running mate William Weld make the ballot, they’ll appear without the party’s label. The party lost its automatic spot on the ballot with the Republican, Democratic, and Green parties after it failed to clear signature and vote tally thresholds in prior elections. They are expected to be identified as independents rather than Libertarians in at least a couple of states. They’ve filed their paperwork to get on Ohio’s ballot. It gets worse. Third parties would need to win three percent of a presidential or gubernatorial vote to stay on the ballot for the next cycle.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and running mate Ajamu Baraka are set appear on Ohio’s ballot with their party’s affiliation.
A month ago, a Quinnipiac Poll showed Johnson getting 7 percent support and Stein 6 percent.
Ohio Libertarians have fought the changes in state and federal court for years.
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A July Associated Press-GfK poll found both Stein and Johnson remain virtual unknowns among Americans, with 76 percent saying they don’t know enough about Johnson to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion and 82 percent saying the same about Stein.
