The LNC Ballot Access Committee has presented a report identifying $130,000 in Presidential ballot expenses for this year. $15,000 has already been allocated.The lead current expense is $45,000 to run a candidate for Auditor in Massachusetts. If he gets 3% of the vote, few signatures would be needed in 2028 to put the Libertarian candidate on the November election ballot. There will almost certainly not be a Republican candidate in the race, thought there is still an open path to doing so, so 3% may well be attainable.
The $45,000 will pay for the required 5,000 valid signatures (plus a 2,000 signature safety margin) at $7/signature. As “Libertarian” is a political designation, not a political party, any registered voter may validly sign one of the nominating papers.
Readers will note that the LNC already has a significant budget shortfall, has National Convention income to date running well below historical trends, and has a much smaller income and membership base to draw upon. Can it afford this spending? Of course, it can keep burning through the money it obtained by selling its building.
It was not clear from the report what funds or numbers of signatures are expected from the campaign or the LNC’s state affiliate. I gather that the State Affiliate is not interested in running candidates for office except at the lowest levels. Nor is it clear who is handling delivering the nominating papers to the town clerks and recovering them after the signatures have been validated. The organization that handled the 2022 ballot access effort, then called the ‘Libertarian Association of Massachusetts’, was constructively disaffiliated by the LNC, had its delegation to a national convention rejected by the credentials committee, and is now associated with the Liberal Party of the United States.
According to the report on this issue in the Independent Political Report:
“In its report, the committee argued that the Massachusetts race presents a lower-cost path to future ballot access because a presidential petition drive in 2028 would require 10,000 valid signatures, twice the number needed for the auditor race, and cost roughly twice as much.”
This is the perennial ballot access problem in Massachusetts: The best option for ballot access for the national party does not necessarily result in the best outcome for ballot access for other candidates in Massachusetts. If i were advising the current state party leadership, I would encourage them to run a candidate for Secretary on a broad based platform for easier assess for all partisan candidates. Even the Republicans would benefit from this. In fact, if they were really clever, they could take advantage of the ability to jointly petition statewide candidates, and nominate a candidate for Secretary, as well. (Bill Galvin in very old and vulnerable – another plus).
A Secretary candidate would be needed.