Last updated on December 11, 2025
The Video coverage failed after a bit, due to local wifi linkups failing. The meeting is being recorded and will be up on You Tube eventually.
Thanks to intermittent sound and Keith Thompson liveblogging I can report:
Dassing, Brocco, Ford, Weir, Hays, Lam, Martin, Johnson, Nanna, Watkins are absent. Ford arrived after the count was made. 12 are present.
Evan amended the agenda to add two minutes to supplemental regional reports, and to increase EPCC to 5 minutes. Moved to remote Defend the Guard update. Include Media report with Brian and Alex – staff reports for 5 minutes.
Mr. Redpath moved to add Ballot Access Committee population to the agenda. Passes with no objection.
Dru from the Arizona affiliate gave public comment announcing their convention.
Dustin Coffell spoke about the Missouri affiliate’s convention.
Wes Benedict spoke on his many accomplishments, the LP Booster PAC, and his candidacy for LNC Chair. Although Wes Benedict and Evan McMahon are both running for Chair, they are on very good terms.
Geoffrey Neale spoke in public comments welcoming us – he Chaired the Party twice, serving on the LNC 7 times.
Nekhaila speaks. He speaks highly of the staff. Fundraising is the key effort. Says holidays are not a good fundraising time. Emails get ca. 50,000 people; effort to improve now. Mailer cost $4000, brought in $40,000. Steven spoke on the Parity Project, which will focus on membership growth and fundraising, reaching out to contacts including all registered Libertarians in states with partisan registration. Working on doing candidate training courses – seeking 5k.
Seeking an update for Defend the Guard, especially given the situation in Venezuela.
We got attention on Twitter regarding our courting of Elon Musk, Steven got media appearances stemming from it.
Getting 4-5 media appearances per month.
Staff is reportedly putting in 40-50 hours a week.
National Executive Director Hannah Kennedy is having a baby this weekend!
Need to focus heavily on fundraising, the Parity Project should help after the holidays.
LNC is pursuing restitution from Freedom Calls from Angela. A demand letter went out yesterday and we will be moving forward with reclaiming funds now that the Vest suit has ended.
Q How important is it to have candidates in place? Some donors want results. We elected 27-30 candidates. We won 66% of the races we were involved in this year. In 2026 we want to field several hundred candidates and win a majority of those races.
Steven was asked if he thinks we would do better to move the convention up as to give our Presidential nominee more time and the Party more attention. Yes, which is why we are moving the 2028 convention up to Feb.
The meeting IS being recorded, which will be posted later Three Cheers for Keith Thompson!
We are back. Chair sent a demand letter to McArdle demanding return of $49,800 sent to Freedom Calls. Our priorities are membership growth and fundraising via the Parity Project. Perry Willis and current employees are on line. $5000 to Michael Pickens for Project Decentralized Revolution. 66% of our candidates, around 30 of them, won. There will be a presentation on Defend the Guard.
Darr reports he is doing a monthly newsletter to cover party news. I am concentrating identifying things that need to be done. Blay Tarnoff is the new Judicial Committee Chair. Mike Seebeck is seeking tellers for teh National Convention. Bylaws Committee is still processing proposals.
Treasurer: I do a monthly report. I am on the Financial Standards Committee. We have several requests for information from the FEC. All reports have been submitted to the FEC. Some amendments to our reports are forthcoming. Lists many people he deals with about financial reporting. No dollar amounts are mentioned.
Secretary: Minutes up to date. Delegate allocations prepared. A dozen state reports were bounced by the state due to faulty email addresses. TN has one delegate due to write-in votes. There will be no more one-note reports. Documents will eventually be circulated.
Legal (Oliver Hall): Vest v. McArdle derivative lawsuit was dismissed. We are being sued by Harlos to get a preliminary injunction to suspend her NDA so she can disclosed alleged facts to various government agencies. She filed a request that has been sealed by the court so we do not know what facts she wants to reveal. Various deadlines were noted. The D&O insurance has a $25,000 deductible before they cover our legal expenses. Hall confirms that the D&O insurers may take note that we have been sued three times in one year.
Staff Reports: The National Director is currently having a baby. Report on media; things are actually getting done. Interviews may now be weekly. There will be a written report. Perry Willis is doing the Parity Project.Parity Project depends on donations and people coming back. The Liberty is Local campaign will be rolled out. Local successes, see that you can help your local community, may rejuvenated members. Selling antiwar pins raised enough money for campaigns. Engaging in wars across the globe eg Ukraine makes life more dangerous in the US. Pro-capitalist campaign still getting under way. More material advertising convention will be done. There will be a written report.
Regional Reports: Region1 (Wylie) has one primary concern — fake Libertarian Parties in our region, e.g., in Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico,…we need to litigate to defend our trademark.
Region 2 -our report is complete.
Region 3 – Sound unclear.
Region 4 – California convention will have debates of Governor candidates and National Chair candidates. Party will endorse a candidate for Governor, which will be listed on the ballot.
Region 5 ? Region 6 was absent. They recess for 90 minutes and will return at 3PM Eastern.
Ballot Access Reports
Redpath reports that petitioning has become much more expensive. Maryland has to go to $5 to get any signatures. It appears that we have to go to $6 or $7 a signature there. That would cost $30,000 to get us on the ballot. Redpath recalls New Mexico. He recalls going there to petition. He says that Mr. Malagon made the difference. We are the preeminent third party in the US. Ballot access is what does this.
Q is asked why some affiliates can do the petitioning, and other affiliates cannot. Why? Redpath says he does not know the magic formula to get enough volunteers in each state. Diane Sare, NY Senate, generated 45000 signatures with volunteers in six weeks. Remark: There are states where volunteers have emotion. MAHA had a lot of volunteers; the candidate might make a difference.
For New Mexico we spent ca. $54,600 or so for petitioning.
Someone reports that Lars Mapsted and Oliver Hall’s group are working to improve ballot access in states by changes in laws.
Ford asks if spending money on legislation rather than petitioning might work. Redpath says this is a fine idea. It requires state parties to act. Redpath says one reason he left Illinois was the bad ballot access there.
There is an EPCC report. Committee is running smoothly.
FSC (fiscal) committee: We are ramping up. Hard to understand. The speaker is not load. They are approving some expenditures, e.g. the Iron Light investment. There is a report. They apparently turned down a proposal for something.
Darr: Darr I think is concerned about data being shared outside NDA limits.There was a question as to who has completed their NDA and who has not.
Litigation Committee has not yet met. Meeting has now been schedule. They are about to discuss joining the New Mexico litigation.
Ford: discussion of rooms, suite upgrades,… Web site will be upgraded this weekend. We have 140 rooms reserved already. Booth income will likely exceed budget. Suite upgrades are favorable. Move to go to executive session to discuss, I think, speakers. The committee goes to another room, leaving the live stream in place. Live stream is being used for announcements. They are now in the process of returning.
Meeting comes back to order.
Next issue is approving many sets of minutes. Redpath moves to postpone. Nays have it. Motion to approve only the LNC minutes. Motion passes. Recordings will be going up on LPedia. Mortion passes without objection. Excomm approves its minutes.
The Chair asks for a motion to approve the proposed budget.
Cowart moves to increase the proposed income streams by 10% as a reasonable stretch goal. Redpath says this change is reasonable. History says increase given this is a midterm election year is appropriate. Amendment passes without objection. McMahon moves to increase the general litigation line by $25,000 to include the D&O trigger. Amend to $55,000 because suing former Chair will be very expensive. Amendment passes for lack of a second. Passes for lack of a second. McMahon moves to reduce staff travel by $20,000 so there will be no staff travel to in-person meetings other than the convention. Passes without objection.
Our insurance broker, says Redpath, does not supply a breakout on insurance expenses. He does not know if D&O insurance is in that line, but he thinks so. There is a suggestion that the insurance number is underreported. It was clear that the research was incomplete. They put numbers into “G&L codes” but it was clear that location of some expenses was unclear. Motion to include insurance from $1000 to $5000 based without clear proof this is the right number. Several members offer to fundraise for historical preservation. There is a motion to increase the candidate support line based on fundraising by $36,000, only if there is $3000/month for Voter Gravity raised as new money within 90 days. Otherwise Voter Gravity is discontinued. McMahon there is very little affiliate use — only a few states — of Voter Gravity, even though it gives us a lot of targeted data. McMahon says there is very little training for Voter Gravity, and it is not good. Ford proposes that we do solid training at the next NatCon. Motion passes without objection.
McMahon: Moves to decrease ballot access line to zero. We should make ballot access a project-based effort, except the ExComm can contemplate changing the budget. Cowart notes that there is income for ballot access and voter registration. Redpath asks if someone responds to a ballot access pitch letter are they giving to ballot access or are they given because they like us. He says: “We have been down the road before. I object to making ballot access a project rather than a core function.” There are apparently problems with the web page. McMahon: I said ‘this is a project or you go to the ExComm to ask for money’. Ballot access line is reduced to $23,000 without objection.
Cowart : The budget is as lean as it can be without cutting further. I do not like passing a deficit budget, but the only place left to cut is staff. We have made it as lean as I can. Nekhaila: Our fundraising is the main effort, starting in a few weeks. A donor promised $100,000 a year if it works. The goal is to make money. We must increase our revenue line.
Ford: How often is the FSC reviewing where we are relative to the budget. Coward: We are not tracking relative to a monthly budget but we are tracking where we are every month.
Nekhaila claims that we have had several good months so we are not tapping the building fund money or the Kennedy money at all. He says there are claims to the contrary. To my knowledge the claims refer to the 2026 budget.
Speaker: We outsourced our accounting. How did we do it before then. Answer: it was done by the Executive Director? We are paying $45,000 a year to the accounting. For what are we paying the outside accountant? McMahon: What are we getting out of the accounting? Redpath: I think doing it away is aspirational but we aren’t up to doing it at the moment. Redpath says he can’t do it at the moment. Cowart is very hard to understand. McMahon: There is no requirement that we hire an auditor firm, just that there is an outside audit.
Q Where is the interest on the building money? It might be $15,000 a year.
Ford: We spend far too much time on hardware. We need to be political. I would like to spend most of our time on politics. I want qualified professionals handling the finances.
Cowart: Add to the revenue lines the interest from the building fund roughly $25,000. Interest on the JFC account is not restricted. Many people are talking over each other. There is a conversation, not people being recognized.
McMahon warns that there is contention as to what the building fund can be spent on. Redpath says our FEC consultant will investigate how much was actually given into an FEC-building fund. There is a motion to invest in stocks, etc. There is a question what is legal. Redpath says if we lost money even in a non-risky investment our investors would wax wroth. There is a discussion if this is a legitimate budget item.
Cowart moves moves to increase income from interest by $25,000. Passes without objection. We are now less than $50,000 in deficit. There are further changes in the interest line; it ends up at $40,000.
The motion has been called. There is no objection. We advance to a roll call. Bohler, Wylie, Darr, Ford, Robson, Knebel, McGee, McMahon, Hertzch, Redpath, Cowart, Vinson, Nekhaila. Vote is 13-0-0 and passes.
Move to recess to tomorrow at 9AM their time.
Addendum from Keith Thompson:
Maryland’s ballot access is challenging for a few reasons.
First, the law was changed this past legislative session to reduce the petitioning window by a month and to permit only a single turn-in, rather than the prior two-attempt method. This significantly increases the difficulty.
Second, rules for signature validity are stringent. So much information must be collected for each voter that only five signatures fit on the official sheet. Absent or incorrect information leads to disqualification. State Board of Elections estimates that 40% of all signatures turned it should be expected to be disqualified. Recent petition drives validate this assumption. LP Maryland’s validity rate appears to be slightly better than the average, but we will still need a very large cushion to be assured of a successful drive.
Third, more and more places are prohibiting petitioning. Very few supermarkets allow it anymore, and many large events prohibit political booths.
Fourth, we are not legally allowed to collect digital signatures. We were during covid, due to winning a court case, but they must now be wet ink, limiting social media pushes.
Fifth, cost of living has increased sharply in the area. Prices for everything are now more expensive, and hotels, etc for paid petitioners are no exception.
It’s not impossible. Over 5,600 signatures have already been collected in Maryland without tapping National resources, though a combination of volunteer work and MD funds earmarked for this. Volunteers are still working, and we will get further, but we’ll need some paid petitioners to get a safe amount to ensure we have ballot access. If successful, this will guarantee us ballot access through the 2028 presidential election.
Diane Sare got lots of signatures because she is affiliated with the LaRouche organization, so she had a cadre of ready-made, dedicated volunteers.
It should also be pointed out that the Green Party/Jill Stein campaign spent a lot more money on ballot access than the Libertarian Party/Chase Oliver campaign. The Greens/Stein also had some major ballot access failures, most notably in New York and in Indiana, where they spents lots of money and ended up with no ballot access. The only failure the Libertarian Party had in places where it tried to get ballot access was in Tennessee, which was a result of a poor hiring choice in paid petitioner circulators (which I warned against and suggested alternatives for) who screwed the job up, but since the independent presidential candidate petition in Tennessee only requires 275 valid signatures it was at least not an expensive failure (it was pathetic and sad though). Jill Stein got on the ballot in 37 states and Chase Oliver was on the ballot in 47 states.
“A donor promised $100,000 a year if it works.” The contribution limit to the general fund is $44,300. The rest would have to go to the three allowable separate segregated funds: Headquarters Building, Presidential-Nominating Convention, and Legal. With the building sold and no Presidential-Nominating Convention until 2028, $55,700 would have to go to the Legal Fund. Would this be used to sue more affiliates, or will the LNC use it to finally go after the funds misappropriated by the former Chair?
Political organizations are taxed at the highest corporate rate, with exemptions for donations, campaign materials, and bingo games. The $25k interest will be taxed 21%. They need a $5,250 Government Theft expense line.
One would hope it would be to go after McArdle. But I don’t believe he has such a donor unless he made a McArdle-like deal with the devil. He told me he had interest in more JFCs with candidates dates of another party. Private conversation. Can’t give anyone a recording, but it happened.
He’s cozying back up to MC because he’s hungry to be re-elected.
And when I say private conversation it was not “confidential” – it was in passing and casual. I of course expressed opposition. There were no specific references. Very general.
WTF? A donor cannot give $100k. They could max is remaining weeks of this year and then max next year and still not hit that number. Did no one challenge him on that number?
I note things not as chaotic without Martin or Malagon (Malagon not chaotic but manipulative).
You also don’t move to approve minutes. Thats been done wrong a long time.
Some keepers shown through this meeting. Never Nekhaila.
PS: in person meetings (have just one a year) waste of money as shown by piss poor attendance.
The RFK Jr. campaign did get more volunteer signatures than the Libertarian Party got, however, in spite of this the RFK Jr. campaign spent FAR more money on ballot access than the LP spent, and this is true even if one narrows the state comparisons down to only states where both the RFK Jr. campaign and the LP conducted ballot access drives. The RFK Jr. campaign paid out in the ballpark of $15-$20 per RAW signature (not per valid, the per valid amount would be even higher) in every state DC, plus they gathered MORE THAN DOUBLE the legally required number of signatures in every state and DC even though on top of the money they spent to gather signatures they paid out even more money to hire a full time crew of people to check the validity of every signature before they submitted signatures to election departments, and I know that in at least some states they also had teams of volunteers checking the validity of each signature, so they had signatures being checked twice, once by volunteers and again by paid validity checkers. The RFK Jr. campaign made several petition drive blunders and they actually had to pay to redo some entire state ballot access drives, such as Nevada where they screwed up and used the wrong petition form, so they literally had to do the petition drive in Nevada twice, and they shelled out a lot of money both times. They also had to redo Georgia, South Carolina and Arizona. They had other screw ups as well, and this was in spite of them having a team of highly paid supposed ballot access experts and attorneys. They farmed all of the paid petitioning out to a mercenary monoply contractor who had mercenary subcoordinators under them. The top managers had all or most of their travel expenses paid for and they stayed at Marriots and Hiltons.
The Libertarian Party had a FAR cheaper and more efficient ballot access operation than did the RFK Jr. campaign. REALITY is that the Livertarian Party usually gets on the ballot cheaper and more efficiently than any other group.
No one cares when the Chair and MC decide we are prostitutes to brain worm and orange Julius.
Redpath is right that ballot petitioning is more expensive and just generally more difficult across the board and across all parties. Ring cameras made a non-trivial difference: people do not answer the door if they see a stranger holding a clipboard. There is something to the idea that the decline of “third spaces” has made “town square advocacy” in general more difficult, though obviously people still do go outside in large numbers.
Kennedy spent a ton of money because his whole campaign was juiced by huge donations. No shade (at least not on that), there was no other way he could have done it. Petition gathering is being “professionalized” to a degree it never was before, simply because it’s much harder to just throw volunteers and interns out into the street with clipboards and get useful results.
Diane Sare is one of the leaders of a political cult so that’s not really a replicable process unless the LNC wants to go in a whole new and very disturbing direction.
The RFK Jr. campaign could have easily spent less money and gotten the same amount of ballot access. The had multiple screwups which could have easily been avoided and they had too many middleman coordinators sucking up override money. They had a big volunteer army that they could have used more effectively. I know in some states that petitions were intentionally withheld from volunteers so paid signature gatherers could get more of the signatures. They were going to have to spend a lot on ballot access because he waa running as an independent but there were most definitely things they could have done to keep the costs from going as high as it did.
RFK Jr is corrupt.