Liberty Maven

It appears that even though the Libertarian Party had met the requirements for ballot access in the state of Connecticut, a federal judge ruled today that “elections officials cannot be forced to add the Libertarian Party’s presidential ticket to the Nov. 4 state ballot.”  According to the Associated Press:

U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall said the Connecticut Libertarians waited too long to file their challenge, in which they said the candidates were denied a place on the ballot over questions about petition signatures.

Forcing elections officials to change Connecticut’s ballot less than two weeks before the vote would cause confusion and unreasonable expense, Hall said in her ruling Thursday.

And in a letter from the Barr campaign, Russ Verney wrote, in part:

As of this afternoon, we finally know the results of our ballot access efforts throughout this campaign.

A Connecticut judge allowed the state to keep us off of the ballot even though we had met the requirement.

The state employees in Connecticut not only improperly struck signatures that we had collected, but also miscounted our signatures.

After hearing from a technical expert on electronic voting machines, the judge decided that it would be too big of a burden to add Bob to the ballot even though the state was at fault.

I cannot express to you how much this upsets me.

Our republic managed to survive while using paper ballots for 100-plus years.  The state could have printed paper ballots in a matter of days and thrown the electronic voting machines in the river if they are so difficult to deal with!

While an emergency appeal can be filed, our party who was funding the case has decided against it and honestly, after looking at our finances, we cannot afford an appeal.

I pledge to you that we will work together to correct this injustice after the election – and the many others like it in other states.  I’m sure that many of Bob’s supporters will join us in our efforts.

While this last disappointment is our greatest, we have been successful. Bob’s name will appear before 95% of voters across America – more than any other third party candidate in 2008!

I am very thankful for this and expect that, given the failure of John McCain’s campaign, we will garner many more votes than expected.

Voters across America who were uncomfortable voting for McCain but were still willing to do so just for the sake of winning no longer enjoy that option.  Now they can exit the voting booth with their heads held high knowing that they cast a vote for principle by voting for Bob Barr.