http://www.ballot-access.org/…

On October 6, Survey USA released a poll for the New Hampshire U.S. Senate race. It shows: Shaheen (Dem.) 48%, Sununu (Rep.) 40%, Blevens (Libt.) 7%, undecided 5%.

If Ken Blevens polls as much as 4%, the New Hampshire Libertarian Party will once again be ballot-qualified. It was ballot qualified between November 1990 and November 1996, back when the vote test was 3%. In 1997 the New Hampshire legislature raised the vote test to 4%, but expanded the vote test so that U.S. Senate would count, instead of just Governor. In the entire history of popular elections for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire, no independent or minor party candidate for U.S. Senate ever polled as much as 4%, except that Blevens himself polled 4.53% for U.S. Senate in 1996. However, the 1997 law change was written so that Blevens’ polling over 4% in 1996 did not count toward making the party ballot-qualified.

In the entire nation, the best Libertarian showing in a U.S. Senate race with both a Democrat and a Republican in the race was in 2000 in Massachusetts, when Carla Howell polled 11.9%.

The reason I post this story at all is due to what I emphasized above. Many many people think that political rules are uniform and that the reason third parties don’t do better is purely due to lack of interest by the public.

As one can see here, likely as a result of Blevens doing well enough to make a significant impact on an election, the rules were made more strict. The Ds and Rs do their best to keep third parties as insignificant as possible by making asymmetrical laws which are completely biased in favor of those already in the majority. Worse still is the biased enforcement of those laws. Should the Ds and Rs break them the courts rule in favor of them. Should a third party, more often than not, they are ruled against. Take for instance the issues in Texas where the Ds and Rs submitted candidates after the deadline. The Barr campaign took it to court and lost. In West Virgina where the LP was unable to get enough signatures in time for the deadline but did within a few days was disallowed from the ballot. Then you have places like Pennsylvania where the Rs are suing to keep Barr off the ballot and Louisiana were the Socialist party and Libertarian Party were just bumped off. The former not being able to get back on.

http://www.reformer.com/…

“They never passed (the 16th Amendment),” said Brendan Kelly, chairman of the New Hampshire Libertarian Party. “They just said they did.”

Why does the Libertarian party allow these type of guys head their state parties? I’m libertarian and agree with more of the Libertarian platform than any other party in general… but this ‘16th Amendment wasn’t passed’ crap is just false. While the passing of the amendment was sloppy it happened. The part I’d fight more is that the federal government can force corporations to withhold income and other taxes from your paycheck. I think it’s simply a way to make the mental burden of handing over that much money easier. If tax payers had to cut the federal government a check yearly, quarterly or even monthly, more would vote for small government representatives.