“Representing the challengers, conservative attorney Alan Ostergren argued that the candidates were improperly nominated at the party’s convention because the delegates at the initial county conventions had not yet started their terms. State law says delegates start their terms the day after they are selected at precinct caucuses, but the Libertarian Party held county conventions the same day.”
Really seems like a self inflicted wound, isn’t it?
How hard would it have been to delay the convention until Midnight?
Libertarians here had similar organization issues:
“Under the Libertarian Party’s current constitution and bylaws posted online, candidates are supposed to be nominated by a mail or electronic election, unless the party’s board of directors lacks the money to run a mail election and votes to hold a convention instead. This year, the party scheduled a convention in Moro, but it didn’t have enough members show up to make a quorum.”
LOL
The Libertarian Party becomes more of a shit show every year. They really need a charismatic leader if they ever wanna make a name for themselves again.
That implies they ever made a name for themselves. :) I mean, I guess Gary Johnson in 2016? He hit 10% in the polling… just barely cracked 3% in the actual election though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Johnson_2016_presidential_campaign
And I don’t think he had much charisma either. Definitely the strongest libertarian run that I’ve seen though.
They could try running in real libertarian principals instead of whatever bastardized monstrosity they’ve become.
While I still maintain my stance that anyone who votes 3rd party in a FPTP election is a moron, this does seem unfair.
The challenge was brought by Republicans, but it’s a challenge based on Libertarian Party rules of how they choose who to nominate. The only people who should have standing are Libertarian Party members.
If they had put in their nomination forms late or made some other error with the process of doing the nomination, then it would be fair for Republicans or Democrats or independent voters to challenge to get them removed. But an internal matter that the article says was completely uncontroversial internally should not be brought by outsiders.
I can’t agree with this in general. I can see the need for these kinds of tactics in the Presidential election, but for Senate? I mean, the Libertarians would probably cacus with the Republicans anyways if they won, and Iowa is pretty solidly Republican anyways (or so I imagine) so what’s the big deal here in offering more choices to the voters?
Because both Democrats and Republicans seem united on one front: reducing your options when it comes to voting, not expanding them.
That sounds about right for the GOP.
Regarding Dems, I’d have to say citation needed (barring of course the cases I implied above - but in those the reasoning is more nuanced than just “nO mOrE cHoIcEs”). A good counter example is how they backed independent socialist Bernie Sanders, https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/mar/02/how-can-bernie-sanders-run-democratic-primary-when/
I’d have to say citation needed
Well the democrats are trying mighty hard to keep Claudia De la Cruz and Jill Stein off the ballots.
Also, I LOVED Bernie Sanders, and I personally think the Democrats did him dirty because they wanted Hilary on the ticket. And look how that turned out.
Also, I LOVED Bernie Sanders,
Same.
and I personally think the Democrats did him dirty because they wanted Hilary on the ticket. And look how that turned out.
It actually took a lot for Dems to lose that year, when you think about it. It’s definitely possible that had Sanders been on the ticket, he’d have won - it wouldn’t have been possible to subject him to things like the unimportant email scandal or Flynn announcing that Clinton’s being investigated, etc.
Likewise, there’s a good chance Clinton would have won if she had dropped out and endorsed Clinton. There’s an interesting parallel here - RJK Jr would have drawn off more Biden voters, and thus the GOP would have won. But this trend reversed when Harris took over, and so RJK dropped out and joined the GOP’s candidate’s campaign instead.
Well the democrats are trying mighty hard to keep Claudia De la Cruz and Jill Stein off the ballots.
Yeah, those are covered by my earlier statement:
(barring of course the cases I implied above - but in those the reasoning is more nuanced than just “nO mOrE cHoIcEs”).
To reiterate - that this is being done is deplorable, but in a first-past-the-post that’s as broken as what we have here, it’s kinda understandable. In a weird reverse, we also have Dems suing to keep RJK Jr on the ballot.
The scenario that they fear is this: many middle folks vote Harris, more lefties vote Stein and De la Cruz, combined they have more votes together than the GOP guy, but he still wins.
I’m convinced we wouldn’t see Dems do this if we had ranked-choice voting for President. Even a Georgia style runoff would be better. RCV might make Jill Stein immune to accusations of being a Russian spoiler etc.
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