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Ballot Access News
Unfortunately, on July 29, the Kentucky Secretary of State retracted his ruling that the Libertarian Party of Kentucky could choose to have Sonny Landham on the November ballot as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate instead of as a Libertarian. Now the choices are either: (1) the party can submit its petition in early August and have Landham listed as a Libertarian; (2) the party can submit its petition in the middle of August, which will mean that the petition will only be valid for president and vice-president, but not U.S. Senator (the deadline for the presidential and vice-presidential candidate is in early September, but the deadline for all other office is in early August). In that case Landham won’t be on the ballot at all.
That’s a gross still picture and not funny enough. I say flush the video.
IMHO, the LPKY has no obligation to put an unacceptable candidate on the ballot under a different label. That the KY Sec State seemed willing to do so, would have helped the situation, but could still be a problem as Sonny would still be on the ballot and many might still associate him with the LP.
Frankly I’d want to know if KY allows substitution, and if so, substitute in any reasonably tolerable “warm body” as a “paper candidate” so that a name appears with the LP label in that spot.
If KY does not allow substitution, then I’d say to wait on submitting the petitions so as to keep Sonny off the ballot, and not run a candidate – NOTA is IMHO better for the LPKY than Sonny would be…
ART
Apparently, they do not allow substitution.
The LPKY concerns seems to be that the two Kentucky House candidates, including the state chair, will not be on the ballot if the petitions get turned in after the deadline for Landham’s race.
So repudiating Landham comes at a high price. We will now see where their ethics stand in comparison to expedience.
That’s no easy choice. Now that I see how tough it is I don’t want to call it clear-cut. In order to cut out the tumor they have to throw out 2 good right arms.
Steve Newton
writes:
Posted at IPR
Houillion // Jul 30, 2008 at 4:14 pm
To answer questions and avoid further speculation:
Petition for Barr and Landham were gathered in conjunction. Title page for both candidates were required to be shown by petitioners upon request of signature.
Moellman and Combs are state candidates and they would need to turn in their own petitions for ballot access.
Ed Martin is a US House candidate in KY-3. he likewise has turned in his own petition.
Write-in votes for Rand Paul would be worthless. Write-in candidates must likewise go thru a petition process to be a write-in candidate. This would be the only time I would categorize something as a “wasted” vote.
Secretary of State only changed their mind when media started to hound them. Would have accepted the split petition, but informed LPKY that it could be open to challenge. With media attention, SOS decided to avoid all together.
Landham is better known name than Barr in Kentucky, so Landham was most likely stated as subject of petition (speculative as i was not present at any petitioning except my own)
Hope that helps out some.
Landham is better known name than Barr in Kentucky, so Landham was most likely stated as subject of petition (speculative as i was not present at any petitioning except my own)
Hope that helps out some.
From my experience petitioning all over the country, I highly doubt Mr. Landham was mentioned as the subject of the petition very often if at all, regardless of him being somewhat known in Kentucky.