Ballot Access
Barr achieved ballot access in 45 states according to the Libertarian Party website. He was denied access in Oklahoma after failing to reach the minimum threshold of petition signatures. In July, the campaign filed a lawsuit against the state to try to get the candidate on the ballot despite not meeting the guidelines. Barr also filed lawsuits in Massachusetts, West Virginia and Maine to appear on the ballot under similar circumstances. Barr's plea in West Virginia failed on September 7 after U.S. District Court Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. dismissed the lawsuit. The judge proclaimed that "it was their (the campaign's) lack of reasonable diligence that ultimately thwarted their effort to gain ballot access here" in West Virginia.
Lawsuits were filed against Barr by GOP members in Pennsylvania to prevent the candidate from appearing on the state's ballot on charges that the Libertarian Party tricked individuals into signing the state's ballot access petition. Commonwealth Court Judge Johnny Butler dismissed these allegations on September 16, allowing Barr to remain on the state's ballot. The Barr campaign filed a lawsuit to prevent John McCain and Barack Obama from appearing on the ballot in Texas, charging that the candidates' parties did not reach the state's August 26 deadline to report their nominations to the Secretary of State. Texas Secretary of State Esperanza Andrade reported that all the correct paperwork was filed, though neither the Democratic nor Republican parties formally nominated their candidates (at their respective conventions) until after the deadline. On September 23, 2008, the Texas Supreme Court rejected Barr's request without giving a reason.
On September 26, 2008, the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision to keep Barr and Root on the ballot, and ordered that they both be removed due to missing the state's deadline, which passed while state offices were closed due to Hurricane Gustav. The Barr-Root campaign announced that it planned to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court refused to hear the case, and Barr's name was absent from the state's ballot on election day.
Read more about this topic: Bob Barr Presidential Campaign, 2008
Famous quotes containing the words ballot and/or access:
“I do not think the mere extension of the ballot a panacea for all the ills of our national life. What we need to-day is not simply more voters, but better voters.”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)
“Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.”
—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)