(CN) — A federal judge in Maine had some choice words this week to describe the requirements third parties in the state must meet to place their candidates' names on the ballots presented to voters.
Declaring some of the requirements unconstitutional in a 41-page order, U.S. District Judge Lance Walker said third parties like the state’s Libertarian Party faced a “Sisyphean effort” and a task the “equivalent of pushing rope uphill” to remain one of the political parties qualified for ballot access in the New England state.
Should third parties not qualify for ballot access, the Office of Secretary of State undertakes a process Walker called “the purge,” taking the voters who had enrolled in the third party and designating them as unenrolled.
“The act of purging voter enrollment is a punishment in search of a wrong that would make Kafka blush,” Walker wrote, who was appointed to the bench in 2018 by President Donald Trump.
In 2018, the Libertarian Party of Maine had enrolled 6,168 voters for the general election, thousands of voters short of the 10,000 needed to remain qualified for ballot access. Then came “the purge,” and, according to Walker’s decision, by late January 2021 only about 56 voters were enrolled with the party.
Walker said Maine’s practice of removing voters from disqualified political parties and a requirement that candidates seeking to place their names on the ballots receive a certain of number of signatures from members of their own party — as they are applied to the Libertarian Party of Maine — violates the rights of association and equal protection.
The judge’s ruling has left the party that advocates for the “live and let live” approach to governance hopeful it could once again qualify for ballot access in Maine.
In an email, Jim Baines, chair of the party, said the ruling has made the party “cautiously optimistic.”
“We certainly are gratified that the court recognized the unconstitutional burdens Maine’s bipartisan lawmakers impose on new parties,” Baines wrote.
Oliver Hall, one of the attorneys representing the Libertarian Party of Maine in the suit, said Maine is not the only place where third parties or independent candidates have struggled to get on the ballot. In 2017, the Libertarian Party of Georgia filed suit saying the rules there have prevented third-party candidates from running in congressional races since 1943. In March, a judge sided with the party against the Georgia law.
Hall, who is general counsel for the Center for Competitive Democracy, said the center filed suit on behalf of an independent candidate seeking to run for Michigan Attorney General in 2018, convincing a judge the state’s requirement that independent candidates gather 30,000 signatures unconstitutional.
At the end of March, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision to strike the Michigan law and requiring independent candidates collect only 12,000 signatures in order to appear on the ballot.
Hall said the hurdles third parties and independent candidates face for ballot access are part of other anti-competitive practices surrounding elections, such as gerrymandering, where officials run unopposed or against unviable opponents.
“It’s a total subversion of the democratic process because what it ultimately means is that candidates are choosing voters rather than the way it should work, which is voters should be choosing candidates,” Hall said.
Maine’s laws, Hall said, made it impossible for voters without a lot of cash on hand to start a new political party. When the Libertarian Party of Maine qualified for ballot access ahead of the 2016 election, it had sued to extend the deadline to enroll enough voters. The enrollment push cost the party about $200,000, according to Hall.
That year, about 38,000 Maine voters cast their ballots for the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidates, a “strong performance” Walker noted in his decision. Four years later, and the Libertarian Party received the support of about 14,000 Maine voters in the November 2020 presidential election
Spokeswoman for the Department of Secretary of State Emily Cook declined a request to comment, saying the organization was still reviewing the decision. But in its filings with the court, the department said it had an interest in ensuring the ballot presented to voters is not “cluttered with frivolous candidacies from parties with little public support.”
The Libertarian Party of Maine, it said, lacked enough funding even when it had qualified for the ballot, that it was unable to raise the few thousand dollars it would have taken to send a mailer to voters enrolled with it. This, the secretary of state said, showed the party lacked “any modicum of popular support.”
In the meantime, because Walker’s ruling only declared the laws unconstitutional, the judge will hold a future hearing to determine what remedies should apply.
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