Category Archives: Libertarian

The Libertarian Party of Arkansas delivered more than 15,000 signatures to Secretary of State Mark Martin's office Monday to once again become a "new political party."

In a news release, the party said this is the fourth consecutive election cycle in which it has registered as a new party. The state Libertarian Party has never met a threshold set in Arkansas law to automatically retain ballot access -- like the state Republican and Democratic parties -- and avoid the petition process.

Arkansas Libertarian Party Chairman Michael Pakko is asking for a change.

"Libertarians are giving the voters a choice in races up and down the ballot. Moreover, people are choosing to cast their votes for Libertarians," he said in a statement. "In total, Libertarian candidates received 356,287 votes in 2016 -- over 7.5 percent of all votes cast in those races."

"Yet the election laws of the State of Arkansas say that's not good enough to remain a state-recognized political party."

The national Libertarian Party says it already has ballot access for the 2018 elections in 37 states. Of Arkansas' surrounding states, it currently lacks access only in Tennessee.

In Arkansas, the party needs its presidential candidate to garner 3 percent of the popular vote to retain ballot access. Pakko said a more reasonable standard would be 2 percent.

In 2016, the party's candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, received 2.6 percent of the vote in Arkansas. In 2012, he received 1.5 percent of the vote.

Libertarians won recognition as an official Arkansas political party for the first time after collecting more than 16,000 signatures in 2011.

The secretary of state's office has 30 days to validate the party's signatures to verify that at least 10,000 registered voters have signed the petitions.

After some final paperwork to be filed, the Libertarian Party of Arkansas expects to be declared a "new political party" sometime before the end of July.

Pakko said the party plans to start recruiting candidates at that point.

"If you believe that government should protect the rights of the individual, that people should be able to lead their lives however they see fit with minimal interference from government -- if you believe that freedom and prosperity flourish in a world where markets are allowed to work and the U.S. is at peace with its neighbors and the world -- then please consider joining the Libertarian Party of Arkansas, and running for office as a Libertarian," he said.

In the past, the state Libertarian Party has sued over laws that treat Libertarians differently than Republicans and Democrats.

In 2015, the state Libertarian Party filed a complaint after the Arkansas Legislature moved the Libertarian Party's political practices pledge deadline "from March of the General Election year to November 2 through 9 of the year before the General Election year," and required that "any nominating convention for a new political party must be completed" in early November 2015, a year before the general election.

In order to participate with other states earlier in the presidential nomination process, the Arkansas Legislature decided to shift the 2016 primary elections from May 24 to March 1, and the filing period for Democrats and Republicans for the primaries was Nov. 2-9, 2015, instead of late February-early March 2016.

"The two other political parties are making us select our final candidates just when their selection process is just getting underway -- all so they can have their early primary," Pakko said at the time.

In 2016, U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. said the state's statutes for newly recognized parties effectively required the party to nominate its candidates months before the other parties' primaries, and that such a process was unconstitutional. However, Moody declined to force the state to add Libertarian candidates who missed the deadline to the ballot, saying others within the party had filed in time.

The 3 percent presidential candidate election standard applies to every political party -- including Republicans and Democrats. The dates for the 2018 elections follow their normal schedule.

Metro on 06/13/2017

Originally posted here:

Libertarian Party turns in petitions to get on '18 ballot - Arkansas Online

"What we're witnessing," says Nick Gillespie on today's Reason Podcast, "is the end of a bunch of things"the Clinton political dynasty, Brexit, French establishment politics, the collapse of the May government in the United Kingdom"and in that end, there is the possiblity of...a different, 21st-century world...where politics and policy follow all the advances in personalization and individualization and autonomy we see in our cultural and political lives."

Gillespie is joined by Reason magazine Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward and Reason Editor at Large Matt Welch. Andrew Heaton moderates a discussion that heatdly talks about former FBI director James Comey's controversial testimony about Donald Trump, the results of last week's election in Britain, a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar featuring a titular character who looks a lot like the president, and whether Infowars' host and 9/11 truther Alex Jones is actually the libertarian he self-describes as.

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Image: Zach Copley, Wikimedia, Creative Commons.

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Was Comey Convincing, Is Trump Julius Caesar, Is Alex Jones a Libertarian? [Reason Podcast] - Reason (blog)

Politics in plain English

A seven-part guide to the candidates running to be the next governor of Virginia.

Superlative: Most likely to be late to the party"

Cliff Hyra may have been the last candidate to join the Virginia gubernatorial race, but like all cool kids, he has the potential of using this newfound attention to get people talking about what really matters politics.

As you could imagine, running for a statewide election as the third party nominee can set you at a disadvantage from the get-go. Fortunately for Hyra, being an unopposed libertarian candidate means that he can take this time to find his edge and relax while his opponents vie for a space on the general election ballot this week.

Hyra is a patent attorney from Mechanicsville, Virginia, who is married with three young children and is expecting another in Aug. To him, this race is a unique opportunity, and he hopes to build on 2013 candidate Robert Sarvis' momentum.

"Rob Sarvis had one of the most successful campaigns in the history of third parties and libertarian parties, Hyra said. "He got about 150,000 votes which is about a 7 percent turnout. (This) is really within striking distance of 10 percent, which is the threshold where if we hit 10 percent we would have automatic ballot access."

In the past, third party candidates have been required to canvas for 10,000 signatures as a precursor to moving forward with their campaign, a costly measure of resources that is not required of the Republican or Democratic candidates.

Despite Hyra's admittedly brief introduction to state politics, he is unfailingly enthusiastic about his future plans and continues to demonstrate faith in his supporters.

"I think you have to run the race with the goal of winning and being the governor, Hyra said. "You know, we are going to do all the things that we can do to maximize the chances of winning. With that said, I am not a crazy person, so I understand that you know the chances are low. At the same time, last year we had a very unusual election and something happened that I didn't think could happen so you know, I am not ruling it out."

If elected, Hyra has addressed four key issues that he will work to resolve in his four-year term economic growth, education reform, justice reform and health care.

In essence, his strategies to achieve optimal success can be generally attributed to one traditional libertarian solution, deregulation. Most of his campaign hinges on the belief that fewer laws constricting peoples actions can do wonders for the economy, incarceration rates and the booming of businesses.

More specifically, Hyras economic proposal includes eliminating income tax of the first $50,000 and removing specific license requirements that cause businessmen and women to get tripped up on trivial tasks.

Currently Virginians are taxed $11,815.28 on $50,000. This proposed cut would likely benefit the middle class the most, but can still exhibit a positive change in tax returns for people of the state.

Involving improvements with the school system, Hyra boasts small-town research on charter schools in New York as a testament to the power of competition to bring forth greater student and parent satisfaction. He says that elected officials must put forth more effort to close the gap, beginning with the states own research.

I was lucky enough to go to some really great schools in Northern Virginia, but we also have some schools that are not doing as well in some places, Hyra said. There are schools that have been really failing the students for many years and you know to some extent there is only so much good that you can do by just throwing more money at the problem.

According to Hyra, legal punishment for victimless crimes is counterproductive, specifically involving marijuana and alcohol consumption.

Logically speaking, Hyra says that lessening criminal punishments for these kinds of crimes will save Virginia money, which spends on average approximately $25,000 a year to incarcerate a single person. In addition, this plan could help reduce racial profiling. Hyra says studies show that African Americans are equally as likely to commit these kinds of crimes as others, but are being sent to prison at much higher rates.

Finally, Hyra has promised to change the face of healthcare by tossing out laws like Virginias Certificate of Need and is looking for a way to expand the healthcare plan without further involving the government.

Cliff Hyra is an incredible candidate, Libertarian Party of Virginia Chair Bo Brown told Bearing Drift News. Hes brilliant. His wifes incredible. Theyve got this great family. Theyre a great representation of Virginians. Weve got to let a lot of our (voters) understand that there are other candidates out there. You dont have to stay stuck to one of those two old parties.

Because Hyra announced his campaign in late April and received the nomination in May, little has been said about his qualifications for this role by other important political figures or by his opponents who are preoccupied with their respective primaries on Tuesday, June 13.

Hyra is a Virginia Tech alumnus who majored in aerospace engineering before attending law school at George Mason.

Hyra says that most people may not know that he became interested in the art of advantage gambling during his time at Virginia Tech and used his computational prowess at Las Vegas casinos for fun.

Want to learn about more gubernatorial candidates? Click below to learn about Republican front-runner, Ed Gillespie.

Superlative: Most likely to take detailed notes

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Meet Cliff Hyra: The libertarian with a golden ticket to the general election - Virginia Tech Collegiate Times

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COLUMBUS, Ind. Indianas Libertarian Party helped served a cold one Sunday afternoon.

The day and location - purposeful.

The message unequivocal.

Every right you have on Saturday, you ought to be able to have on Sunday too, Lucy Brenton said, a Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate.

The drink-in was a gathering to protest not only the inability of Sunday sales in Indiana but the recent move by lawmakers to quickly crack down on Rickers, which found a way through existing state law, to sell cold beer at two of its gas stations, including the Columbus store where Sundays event took place.

We couldnt be more excited, Jay Ricker said, Rickers chairman. And theyre all here to say the laws need to change and the legislators need to listen to their constituents.

Sundays event comes a week after another campaign launch.

The Indiana Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association launched a new campaign called Chill Indiana promising their own push ahead of whats expected to be perhaps one of the biggest overhauls ever targeting Indianas alcohol law.

So the challenge for us, how to harness this overwhelming public support, Scot Imus said, the groups executive director.

A summer study committee has been tasked with reviewing and proposing recommendations to change Indianas alcohol code, a detailed and comprehensive task Republican leaders expect will take at least two years.

I can tell you the status quo in Indiana works, Jon Sinder said, vice chair of the Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers. Our alcoholic beverage laws are really not that archaic.

Indiana Libertarians know their legislative power is limited, so theyre channeling a cold one, hoping it will warm the minds for change.

They need to loosen their grip, Rodney Benker said, the partys vice chair. It is time to allow fair and safe competition in the marketplace.

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Indiana's Libertarian Party 'drinking-in' to put lawmakers on tap for change - Fox 59

The Libertarian Party of Arkansas submitted over 15,000 signatures on Monday to the Secretary of States office to try and qualify to be a new political party -- for the fourth election cycle in a row. The state has 30 days to certify at least 10,000 of the signatures are from registered Arkansas voters.

This initial hurdle, and the financial cost of signature drives, is often critiqued by Arkansas third parties. In order for a political party to retain Arkansas ballot access through the next election cycle a candidate for either governor or president has to garner at least three percent of the vote. Last year Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson fell just shy with 2.63 percent of the vote.

Despite falling short of that threshold in 2016, state Party Chair Michael Pakko said the Libertarian Party deserves to be thought of as competitive.

Last year the Libertarian Party was the only party to field candidates against incumbents in all four U.S. Congressional states. In state legislative races Libertarians provided the only opposition in nearly a third of all contested races, Pakko said at the Capitol, Moreover people are choosing to vote Libertarian. Across the four Congressional districts last year our candidates earned over 196,000 votes about 18.5 percent of the total.

The once all-powerful Democratic Party of Arkansas only fielded one Congressional candidate in the last election. But this year, bolstered by an impassioned base in the era of Trump, a growing number of Democrats are expressing interest in 2018 races.

Pakko said he expects Libertarians to be in more three-way races next election.

Its always nice to be the only opposition party. When the Democrats werent running in races last year that gave us a little bit bigger piece of the spotlight but we dont expect that to be the case, Pakko said, so well just take it as it comes.

No Arkansas Libertarians hold legislative, statewide, or federal offices. But that lack of experience isnt necessarily a negative to Pakko.

One of the things voters communicated in their election of Donald Trump was their willingness to pick someone for public office that didnt have previous experience, he said.

While certainly having experienced candidates would be helpful I dont think thats necessarily a handicap to have non-professional politicians, regular citizens running for office and I think voters will be receptive, said Pakko.

What matters most to voters, according to the Libertarian chair, is making government work.

The biggest issue that voters think about is the dysfunctional nature of government both at the state and national level, he said. Its a matter of the two political parties at loggerheads, constant gridlock, and wed like the voters in Arkansas to know there is another choice, another option.

For Pakko and most Libertarians making government work often means passing laws that peel back the role of government, If you believe that governments should protect the rights of the individual, that people should be able to live their lives however they see fit with minimal interference from the government, if you believe that freedom and prosperity flourish where markets are allowed to work and the U.S. is at peace with its neighbors in the world, then please consider joining the Libertarian Party.

Excerpt from:

Arkansas Libertarians Submit Signatures To Be "New" Political Party - KUAR

For the fourth consecutive election cycle, theLibertarian Party of Arkansasplans to deliver petitions to the Arkansas Secretary of States office on Monday to become a new political party for the 2018 election.

Because the party failed to win 3% of the electoral vote in the 2016 presidential race that swept Republican nominee Donald Trump into the White House, Arkansas law requires a new political party to collect 10,000 valid voter signatures during a 90-day period.

Party chairman Michael Pakko, an economist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rocks Institute for Economic Advancement, said the party finds itself in the position again of having to register as a new party when it has participated in the last four presidential elections. Pakko said the performance of the candidate at the top of the ticket should not be the only measuring stick for ballot access. Despite being considered a new party under the law, Libertarians fielded a candidate in all four congressional races, while the Democrats only contested the 2nd District. The party was also the only competition in eight of the 34 contested state House races.

Our performance was definitely improved, Pakko said. We are giving voters a choice and voters are making that choice and voting Libertarian.

According to Pakko, party officials collected more than 15,000 signatures for the 2018 ballot after former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson fell short in the 2016 presidential race with only with 2.63% of the Arkansas vote. Thats an improvement from 2012, when Johnson won 1.52% of the vote. His vote total rose from 16,276 that year to 29,611 this year. If the partys gubernatorial candidate wins 3% in 2018, it wont have to collect signatures in 2020.

By not winning 3% of the vote, the party will again have to qualify for the ballot in 2018, a process Pakko has said required six months of work as well as about $33,000 in costs in the 2016 cycle. Because the primary was moved up to March 1, a state law required the party to select its candidates at the end of 2015. Pakko said the party will try to change the states law defining a political party in the 2017 legislative session while working toward the 2018 election.

During the recent legislative session, the party did not get enough support to change the states law defining a political party ahead of the 2018 election.

And as the nation is riveted with former FBI Director James Comeys testimony before Congress and an obstruction of justice investigation of President Donald Trump by independent counsel Robert Mueller, Pakko said there is a high level of mistrust between American voters and Republican and Democratic parties.

There remains a low-level of trust in government and the two-party system, Pakko said. We see the constant bickering between the two major parties and I think one thing that Libertarians would like voters to know is there is another choice and another option out there.

Pakko said Arkansas voters should take a closer look at the Libertarian Party in 2018 at all levels.

We have a specific set of principles that we believe and we put emphasis on the rights of individuals, and that individuals should be free to live their lives as they see fit without as little interference from the government as possible, said the Libertarian leader and economic forecaster. Keep the government out of peoples lives and out of their pocketbooks.

After party leaders deliver petitions to the Secretary of States office next week and the signatures are validated within 30 days, Pakko said the party will immediately begin to recruit new candidates for the next major election that is now less than two years away.

Read more:

Libertarian Party To File Petitions As 'New Political Party' For Fourth Time - KASU

OMB Director Mick Mulvaney strongly stressed his libertarian leanings in a recent interview with theWashington Examiner. According to the Examiners Alex Pappas, Mulvaneysaid he considers himself in the libertarian wing of the party. Mulvaney then went on to say, Ive always come from the sort of the school of thought that I dont care what you do in the privacy of your own home.

Mulvaney also mentioned that his staff had been working closely with Senior Advisor to the President, Stephen Miller, to turn the Trump campaigns policies into numbers. Miller is widely seen as a close ally of White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, so this may be promising for grassroots conservatives who are hoping that Trump sticks by his anti-establishment, America First platform.

The OMB Director made clear that he differs from Trump on the major issue of entitlement reform, but agreed to defer to the President on this.

We talked through the various mandatory spending programs and why I thought they needed to be changed, how I thought they could be changed. And at the end, I gave him a list, and he went down and said yes, yes, yes, no, no, no, yes, yes, no. The nos were Social Security retirement and Medicare.

Its a policy dream come true to be able to make the arguments directly to the president of the United States, and if I lose, thats great. Im not the president. He is. And I absolutely respect his final decision.

Mulvaney stated that his name was put into consideration for the post of OMB Director by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee and himself a strong advocate for sound money. Hensarling had previously been considered for Treasury Secretary, but was passed over for a more conventional establishment figure, movie producer Steven Mnuchin.

Mulvaney, a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus,initially endorsed Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in last years Republican primaries, but was quick to get behind Trump after he won the Republican nomination.

See original here:

Trump's Libertarian Budget Director: I Don't Care What You Do In The Privacy Of Your Own Home - The Liberty Conservative

By now most of us have read the articles and laughed, and some of us have watched the videos and guffawed. A drunken strumpet having a bad hair day gets booted from a comedy club, then arrested, and then lays into the cops in slurring, vitriolic invective. She [it was a woman] attempts to parlay her status as a television reporter into some kind of Get Out Of Jail Free card it doesnt work. Another comedian at the club records her performance art on his phone and posts it to the internet. The following day she claims, though her family attorney, to have been drugged. She was fired from her television reporting job anyway.

It was a classic object lesson in the negative aspects of self-important, anti-social tantrum. She was charged with disorderly conduct, criminal mischief [whatever that is], and resisting arrest. Resisting arrest is the pile-on feel-good charge offered up when cops dont really have anything substantive. We never see murderers or armed robbers charged with murder or armed robbery and resisting arrest. Whenever resisting arrest is announced, its fairly prima facie that the major issue is that the cops ego was bruised, the poor dears.

The essential sequence of events is this: * Drunken strumpet heckles performer * Performer cant handle heckler * Club employees escort drunken strumpet from venue to public sidewalk where cops were waiting * Cops confront drunken strumpet about her actions inside venue * Drunken strumpet lambastes cops for being, well, cops * Cops cuff drunken strumpet * Drunken strumpet continues to berate cops * Cops eventually haul her away

What happened next, though, is Grade-A statist apologism and rationalization. People the nation over cheered and huzzahed. Many manly he-men volunteered assorted fisticuffs to punctuate their disapproval of her actions. It would be one thing and completely understandable, if still distasteful were these statist apologists the standard democrats and republicans who celebrate hyper-reactive government involvement in nearly every aspect of human interaction. But they werent.

They claimed to be libertarians, which makes it inexcusable.

The worst part about it, none of those professing to possess libertarian sensibilities could understand why their hairy chest-pounding was putrid statism.

The first and most common excuse offered up is that the woman at the center of the nothingness assaulted someone by spitting. First there was nothing in any of the written accounts that asserts she definitively spit on anyone. Second were supposed to be libertarians here. Spitting is, under the worst of circumstances, little more than a second graders preferred method of making the girls in class run screeching, next to eating bugs and turning eyelids inside out. Big-girl panties, guys; pull em up.

To be fair, there were multiple accounts stating that the cop-denouncing woman and I will quote from one of those accounts appeared to attempt to spit, but the target of her expectoration changed from version to version, rendering the accusation suspect at best and contrived at worst. I have no doubt, though, from what I remember about my, and observed in others, bouts of pronounced drunkenness that more than a few people in her vicinity were hit with spittle from the volume and relentlessness of her tirading. But spray is not the same thing as hocking a loogie.

Yet it was over this assault-by-saliva claim that most of the ahem libertarians offered to deconstruct the orthodontics her parents had paid for. Self-defense, more than one suggested.

Sorry, no. Self-defense, under law, permits only those actions which are necessary to prevent another similar assault, while using the minimum force available. Someone spitting at you is not justifiably met with a punch to the teeth any more than it is justifiably met with a folding chair across the shoulders or a gunshot to the torso. Minimum necessary force to prevent being spat upon a second time by a woman handcuffed by police consists of moving out of loogie-range, and not a lot else.

Self-defense against projectile saliva under libertarians holy Non-Aggression Principle, however, would be a different matter. Does the NAP justify disproportionate response? Dunno. A quick straw poll of libertarians on US self-defense against terrorists knocking down some really tall buildings in 2001 and the 16-year war waged since then might prove illuminating.

The relevant question is: what would the NAP allow as self-defense against the appearance of an attempt to perform juvenile micro-aggression? Would it allow more than the appearance of an attempt at self-defense?

The follow-on statist argument made by non-libertarian libertarians is, Yabbut spitting is assault, and attempting to spit is attempted assault. Both are crimes!

The State defines many things as crimes, including not buckling up, not buying health insurance, and smoking herbage. The State does these things because it can and because not enough people call them on it. Courts certainly arent about to do their duty and nullify laws made in excess of the governments defined power to make law. Not without a revolution waiting in the wings. Were supposed to be libertarians here; we understand that just because The State calls it a crime doesnt mean squat to libertarian political philosophy.

Assault-by-saliva is one of those crimes. It is childish and repulsive; nothing more.

Other excuses made for the arrest of this drunken strumpet over her outburst are that she was drunk in public, which is a crime. Again, just because The State calls it a crime

She was a possible danger to herself. But were still libertarians; The State is not defined to be our Mommy.

The government has an obligation to provide public safety. Apart from providing public safety being impossible without locking everyone up because theyre suspicious, it is only actually attempted by a police-state. A free country housing free citizens requires that the government only pester those who have actually committed crimes falling within the legitimate authority of that government to define crime, and then only when there is enough evidence to support pestering them over it. This drunken strumpet had done nothing that reached that lofty elevation; at most the police should have shooed her to a cab, or taken her home themselves.

She was asked to leave the comedy club; she was therefore trespassing. No, crime cannot retroactive, and trespassing is no different. She was escorted out of the comedy club to the sidewalk. where she stayed. partly because she was almost immediately handcuffed, but still. Among the crimes that she had not committed was especially trespassing.

Its real simple, here: were libertarians. We do not advise or condone the involvement of The State merely because of a squabble between self-interested private parties. In this case, the self-interests were a drunken strumpet who couldnt hold her liquor and a comedy club whose comedian couldnt handle a heckler. Liberty requires the freedom to squabble and the freedom to handle those squabbles privately, without The State.

If you want police in the vicinity just to make sure nothing gets out of hand fine. Hey, there mightve been a few barrel-chested libertarians wanting to take the opportunity to slug a drunken strumpet appearing to attempt to hock a loogie. But unless things do get out of hand, the cops are there, just like everyone else, to eat popcorn and watch the squabble.

Nor does being libertarian and reducing the involvement of The State to observer status mean that we condone anti-social behavior and immature outbursts. Even if those outbursts are First Amendment-protected and when directed at the cops largely accurate and deserved. It means we take videos on our smart phones and post them on the internet to serve as an object lesson in knowing ones upper limit on alcohol.

Non-state social sanction is, in the long run, a far better deterrent to these tantrums than heavy-handed police-statism if only because it deters a state becoming a police-state. Again: were libertarians; were supposed to live and breathe this philosophy. So live it and breathe it; own your philosophy. I shouldnt have to keep reminding everyone what they claim to stand for.

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Diogenes, the Libertarian - The Libertarian Republic - The Libertarian Republic

Editor:A few weeks back, the Mohave County Libertarian Party was meeting on a Thursday night at Kingmans Black Bridge Brewery, and we were talking about the array of misconceptions about the Libertarian Party.

We decided that theres a lot of misinformation out there, so I took it upon myself as the Treasurer of the Mohave County Libertarian Party to write this to get a few things straight.

I believe that theres a lot of misinformation. It has been suggested that we Libertarians are in the same realm as the resistance, also known as the indivisible group. Two groups that, from my understanding, decided the Democratic National Committee was too conservative, and theyre a fringe sect to the left of conventional DNC thinking.

Often people see the word libertarian and think liberal the word libertarian actually derives from the word liberty; not so coincidentally, one of the symbols often used by the Libertarian Party is the Statue of Liberty.

Generally the Libertarian party has a platform of the following: Small or almost nonexistent government; limited, if no taxes whatsoever; unfettered individual rights; people taking individual responsibility; noninterference with foreign nations issues; and open and free markets. This is to name a few of the basic principles of the Libertarian Party. It can be boiled down even further to the following notion: We leave you alone, you leave us alone. The Libertarian Party has also been described as socially liberal, fiscally conservative, which I suppose is fair. Our party is relatively new, formed in 1971, but were growing. The 2016 election saw many new registered Libertarians and although we didnt have any federal wins our win was the fact that we received 4.5 million votes, or in other terms, 3.2 million more votes than our last go during the 2012 general election. That speaks volumes 3.2 million fed-up voters.

We simply want this great Republic to once again be for the people not the select few elected to office. If you want to hear more about what were all about, please come join us for a beer at 6 p.m. on the second Thursday of every month at Black Bridge Brewery in Kingman.

Treasurer, Mohave County Libertarian Party

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Jacob Story: Mohave County Libertarians clear up some misconceptions - Today's News-Herald

For the fourth consecutive election cycle, theLibertarian Party of Arkansasplans to deliver petitions to the Arkansas Secretary of States office on Monday to become a new political party for the 2018 election.

Because the party failed to win 3% of the electoral vote in the 2016 presidential race that swept Republican nominee Donald Trump into the White House, Arkansas law requires a new political party to collect 10,000 valid voter signatures during a 90-day period.

Party chairman Michael Pakko, an economist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rocks Institute for Economic Advancement, said the party finds itself in the position again of having to register as a new party when it has participated in the last four presidential elections. Pakko said the performance of the candidate at the top of the ticket should not be the only measuring stick for ballot access. Despite being considered a new party under the law, Libertarians fielded a candidate in all four congressional races, while the Democrats only contested the 2nd District. The party was also the only competition in eight of the 34 contested state House races.

Our performance was definitely improved, Pakko said. We are giving voters a choice and voters are making that choice and voting Libertarian.

According to Pakko, party officials collected more than 15,000 signatures for the 2018 ballot after former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson fell short in the 2016 presidential race with only with 2.63% of the Arkansas vote. Thats an improvement from 2012, when Johnson won 1.52% of the vote. His vote total rose from 16,276 that year to 29,611 this year. If the partys gubernatorial candidate wins 3% in 2018, it wont have to collect signatures in 2020.

By not winning 3% of the vote, the party will again have to qualify for the ballot in 2018, a process Pakko has said required six months of work as well as about $33,000 in costs in the 2016 cycle. Because the primary was moved up to March 1, a state law required the party to select its candidates at the end of 2015. Pakko said the party will try to change the states law defining a political party in the 2017 legislative session while working toward the 2018 election.

During the recent legislative session, the party did not get enough support to change the states law defining a political party ahead of the 2018 election.

And as the nation is riveted with former FBI Director James Comeys testimony before Congress and an obstruction of justice investigation of President Donald Trump by independent counsel Robert Mueller, Pakko said there is a high level of mistrust between American voters and Republican and Democratic parties.

There remains a low-level of trust in government and the two-party system, Pakko said. We see the constant bickering between the two major parties and I think one thing that Libertarians would like voters to know is there is another choice and another option out there.

Pakko said Arkansas voters should take a closer look at the Libertarian Party in 2018 at all levels.

We have a specific set of principles that we believe and we put emphasis on the rights of individuals, and that individuals should be free to live their lives as they see fit without as little interference from the government as possible, said the Libertarian leader and economic forecaster. Keep the government out of peoples lives and out of their pocketbooks.

After party leaders deliver petitions to the Secretary of States office next week and the signatures are validated within 30 days, Pakko said the party will immediately begin to recruit new candidates for the next major election that is now less than two years away.

More:

Libertarian Party To File Petitions As 'New Political Party' For Fourth Time - KUAR