Last week’s elections marked a significant victory for the District’s Libertarian Party. Although he predictably lost the race for D.C.’s House Delegate seat to 11-term incumbent Eleanor Holmes Norton, Libertarian contender Bruce Majors’s 13,462 votes easily exceeded the 7,500 votes required to secure the Libertarians major party status. In a demonstration of the utility of voting for third-party candidates, the Libertarians will now be automatically on the ballot in any District election over the next four years, without having to waste time and resources on accumulating the signatures required for minor parties to secure a spot.
Importantly, they will have the chance to broaden the political dialogue during the next election cycle. The Libertarians’ victory demonstrates the practical benefits of voting for a minor party candidate.
As a major party, the Libertarians now have ballot access for the next District general election. This marks a considerable success for the third party, which will consequently be able to conduct primary elections for Libertarian candidates. Primary winners are nominated directly to the general ballot, allowing major parties to sidestep the painstaking process of circulating nominating petitions for each individual candidate. The D.C. Statehood Green Party has qualified for ballot status since November 1998.
As far as requirements for ballot access, which each state decides for itself, DC’s regulations are pretty lax. Oklahoma, for example, requires independent or unqualified party candidates to acquire the support of more than 3 percent of the last vote cast to appear on the ballot.
There are plenty of other significant obstacles which face third parties across the U.S. Most notably, third parties simply do not have access to the monetary resources needed to compete against the two-party establishment. The herculean effort required to ensure candidates are on the ballot excluded the Green Party’s Stein/Honkala ticket from this year’s presidential ballots in 13 states, and the Libertarian Johnson/Gray ticket in three.
D.C.’s major parties have a clear advantage over minor parties because they are able to direct their time, effort, and money toward mounting a solid campaign instead of toward garnering signatures. With major party status, the Libertarians and the Statehood Greens are able to focus on increasing visibility to make sure that their alternative perspectives are heard in the political dialogue of election season.
In this case, the lesser-of-two-evils argument which is often used against supporters of third-party candidates is invalid. In securing major party status, the Libertarians demonstrated the utility of voting for a minor party, especially at the local level.
Now, a formerly marginalized voice will be featured more prominently in the District political sphere. These are the perspectives that more often than not provide a necessary counterpoint to hackneyed two-party rhetoric. Although Bruce Majors and the Libertarians might not be correct in all of their policies, their success shows that voting on principles can indeed have a real effect on politics.
