NEWS -rPOLITICAL
Alaska registration drive sets LP record
Libertarians in Alaska have not only won "major" party status thanks to a newly completed voter registration drive - they've also set a new record for the Libertarian Party.
On August 26, the LP of Alaska received notification from the Division of Elections that 6,505 voters were now registered Libertarians, which was enough to earn the party automatic ballot status without petitioning.
"This means that we are now a govern me government-recogonized political party in Alaska again," said State Chair Len Karpinski. "We hope that our regained status will enable us to run a full slate of candidates for the state legislature in 2000."
But ballot status is only part of the Alaska LP's accomplishments: Thanks to their year-long voter registration drive, it has also become the first state Libertarian Party to gain over 1% of its state's registered voters.
"Of all the ballot-qualification efforts that have occurred in 1999 in the entire USA, for all parties, the Alaska LP effort is the outstanding achievement," said Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News and the country's leading expert on ballot law. "No other minor party has done anything comparable in this calendar year."
The significance of the achievement, said Winger, is that it suggests the party may be able to break through the 1% threshold in other states, such as Massachusetts and Maryland.
"If we could ever get our registration up to 1% in Maryland, we would not need petitions for any of our candidates," he said - which would free the LP from having to collect 26 000 signatures for statewide candidates. And "in Massachusetts, if we could get our registration up to 1%, A wouldn't need to worry about our vote totals" - which would end the state LP's "see-saw" ballot status.
The only states that approach Alaska's registration numbers: Arizona, where Libertarian registration is "close" to 1% and California, where the party had crested at 0.8%.