Minor parties banking on lawsuit
New York may have been able to shake some third parties off the ballot, but minor party leaders say the political arena hasn’t seen the last of them.
The Green, Independence and Libertarian parties all failed to capture the number of votes necessary to maintain ballot access, and the recently created Serve America Movement (SAM) Party did not run a presidential candidate, pulling four minor parties off the ballot in New York.
Leaders for the Green and Libertarian parties said they are continuing the legal challenge to New York’s new requirement for political parties to receive 130,000 votes, or 2 percent of votes cast, in the most recent presidential or gubernatorial election to maintain ballot status, and will run candidates for local races next year.
“Moving forward we are going to be continuing on with our lawsuit with the Green Party, which was also affected by this outcome,” said Cody Anderson, chair of the Libertarian Party of New York. “Second, we are going to continue on as a party, although right now we do not have automatic ballot access, we think we’ll get it back.”
The Libertarian Party garnered just shy of 50,000 votes for the party ’s presidential nominee, Jo Jorgenson, while Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins got fewer than 25,000 votes, according to the state Board of Elections unofficial election results. The Independence Party candidate for the presidency, Brock J. Pierce, received the fewest votes in New York, with about 18,000 votes.
Frank Mackay, chair of the state Independence Party, did not respond to requests for comment.
The state Board of Elections, which was required to certify the results last week, did not respond to a request for those figures on Friday.
The Working Families and Conservative parties were the only minor parties to garner enough votes on their respective lines to maintain ballot access, buoyed by their cross endorsements of the major party candidates. The Working Families Party endorsed President-elect Joe Biden, while Conservatives endorsed President Donald J. Trump.
Despite the defeat on ballot access, the Libertarian Party has seen enrollment increase, Anderson said. Before the party was on the ballot in New York, he said they had about 7,000 enrollees. Now that figure hovers at about 20,000 active voters, according to the state’s most recent voter registration data.
“Clearly the Libertarian message is resonating with people,” Anderson said. “Our numbers continue to increase despite the fact we’ve lost automatic ballot access.”
The Libertarian Party leader expressed confidence in the lawsuit filed alongside the Green Party, which challenges the constitutionality of the changes on both state and federal grounds.
It also calls into question the increased signatures needed for an independent nominating petition in statewide and federal elections. Previously, a candidate needed to collect 15,000 signatures over six weeks, now they must collect 45,000 signatures within the same period. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York’s Southern District, is pending.
“Not only are these new thresholds difficult or impossible for plaintiffs to meet, but they were designed to do so,” the lawsuit alleges. “The nefarious interplay between these two new thresholds deprives minor parties of attaining ballot status and ensures that they will not be able to field statewide candidates to ever again attempt to regain automatic ballot status.”
Anderson and Peter Lavenia, co-chair of the state’s Green
Party, bemoaned the new thresholds, arguing that they will make running candidates and campaigns in statewide races difficult. However, gathering enough signatures in local races will be more attainable since the races have lower signature thresholds.
Lavenia said the Green Party will focus on championing efforts that align with their organization, noting that the party goes beyond politics and often leads on social movements, like Black Lives Matter and taxing wealthy New Yorkers.
“We’re still talking about the Green New Deal and environmental issues,” Lavenia said. “I think we’re going to be talking about electoral reform, not just in our own case, but I think New York state still has some serious problems and I think we are going to try and assemble a coalition around that.”
Anderson said the Libertarian Party will also be more vocal on issues that align with the party.
“We are going to be more vocal about the state’s seizure of constitutional rights,” he said. “We’re going to be more vocal about the governor’s assumption of what amounts to legislative power that the Legislature gave to him and has so far refused to revoke.”