In 2024, McArdle broke precedent and sent the certificates to the state parties knowing full well that some states were considering not following the will of the delegates, including Colorado, Idaho and Montana.
Montana Libertarian Party@Montana_LP
The Montana Libertarian Party has officially rejected Chase Oliver as our presidential candidate. We have maintained that we will always prioritize Montana first, and we do not believe his campaign advances our goals in this state. Similarly situated states should follow our
3:18 PM · Jun 4, 2024 · 428K Views
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McArdle was enraged when Harlos put Libertarian Party nominee Chase Oliver on the Colorado ballot by submitting the specific Colorado nomination paperwork directly with the Colorado Secretary of State. Despite initially leading the LNC to believe otherwise, McArdle went so far as to try to remove Oliver from the Colorado ballot according to public e-mails released from the Colorado Secretary of State.
There is something important to remember.
1. A state affiliate cannot put someone other than the national presidential nominee on the ballot in that state. Doing so violates the LP Bylaws (Arts 2.4 and 14.1).
2. Unless prohibited by the state’s bylaws, a state affiliate can choose not to nominate anyone for president.
What would happen if a state affiliate who participated in the Libertarian National Convention put a presidential candidate on the ballot who did not win the nomination at the Libertarian National Convention? Lawsuit? Would a state’s Secretary of State do this?
The only time something like this happened in the Libertarian Party was in 2000 when there was a split in the Libertarian Party of Arizona and the faction which had ballot access as recognized by the Arizona Secretary of State put the ticket of L. Neil Smith/Vin Suprynowicz on the ballot instead of the ticket which had been nominated at the Libertarian National Convention in Harry Browne/Art Olivier. The faction of the Libertarian Party of Arizona which placed a different presidential ticket on the ballot had disaffiliated from the Libertarian National Convention well before the 2000 national convention in Anaheim, CA took place.
The LNC did attempt to place Harry Browne/Art Olivier on the ballot as independents in Arizona. The Libertarian National Convention did not happen until 4th of July weekend of 2000. During this time Arizona had an early deadline for independent presidential candidates. I think it was in June, but it may have been even earlier than that. Richard Winger thought that our side could win a lawsuit to get the independent presidential candidate petition deadline extended to a later date. So the LNC started a petition drive in Arizona to get the Browne/Olivier ticket on the ballot as independents/non-partisans even though it was past the deadline for this in Arizona. More than enough valid signatures were collected (I think the requirement was around 23,000 and something valid signatures at the time, but this requirement has increased since then due to population increase) to place Browne/Olivier on the ballot and the signatures were submitted to the Arizona Secretary of State. The Arizona Secretary of State rejected them since it was past the deadline so our side filed a lawsuit. Our side won a victory in the lawsuit, but unfortunately the court stalled the lawsuit until after the election was over, so for us it was more of a Pyrrhic victory since it did not result in the Browne/Olivier ticket appearing on the ballot. This victory did force the state of Arizona to move the independent presidential candidate petition deadline to early September, which was a good thing for ballot access. The independent presidential candidate petition in Arizona was in early September up until not too long before the 2024 election when it got moved to around August 17th, which was a set back for ballot access, but is still not as bad as the petition deadline was in Arizona for independent presidential tickets prior to that lawsuit in 2000.
Readers should note that the discussion applies to states in which the state party organization or some operation of state law without libertarian intervention puts the candidate on the ballot. In other states, other processes e.g. petitioning, are needed.
The state basically would control that.
I am speaking internally. It could result in that affiliate being disaffiliated.
The Libertarian Party of Montana did end up putting Chase Oliver on the ballot.