Ohio Libertarians to File 10,000 Petition Signatures for Michael Badnarik

[tpahl]

http://www.badnarik.org/PressRoom/archive.php?p=905

Ohio Libertarians had previously filed 57,150 signatures to be recognized as a political party in Ohio and place all of its candidates on this year's ballot, but the Secretary of State's office disregarded these petitions. The issue is now in federal court.

"It is true that Secretary Blackwell refuses to acknowledge our existence as a political party, even though we have full-time employees, interns, and county affiliates meeting monthly all over the state," replies LPO Executive Director Robert Butler, "By keeping us off the ballot, Blackwell is engaging in the worst kind of political games while disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters."

If these 10,000 signatures are counted, Michael Badnarik will be placed on the ballot as "other party" candidate.

This is another example of the unfair treatment third parties recieve at the hands of Democrats and (in this case) Republicans. Laws limiting the number of candidates feilded is understandable, but the laws should treat all political parties equally. This republican has simply chosen to ignore tens of thousands of signatures gathered by libertarians to become officially recognized leading to yet another 10,000 signatures be gathered by libertarians to get their candidate on the ballot. After all this, he will not even have his party name next to his name on the ballot. The amount of hoops that have been created for third parties just to get on the ballot is ridicoulous, and often observed an a huge amount of resources (both time and money) leaving little left to get their message out. After they do get n the ballot they are left of the polls that the 'non' (read 'bi') partisan commision on presidential debates uses to determine if they should be invited. Yet these debates get corporate sponsers dontaing millions free from any campaign finance laws.

Travis