The North Dakota Libertarian Party is considering a legal challenge to state election law. 

Richard Ames of the NDLP says that North Dakota election law is unduly restrictive of minor party candidates.  In a draft of the potential filing, authored by Richard Winger editor of Ballot Access News, Libertarians claim that having a “partisan primary” is flawed. 

That flaw is emphasized by the fact that a minor party candidate has not appeared on a North Dakotan general election ballot in 34 years.  Winger states in the brief that on average minor party candidate must receive in excess of 6% of the total possible vote to move to the general election. 

Winger contends that low primary numbers are not an indicator of general election failure.  The draft cites numerous elections where a minor party candidate received a low number of votes in the primary and a significantly larger number of votes in the general contest. 

Most notably among those examples was the 1996 Minnesota election for Representative District 30B.  Reform candidate Tom Viken garnered only 8 votes in the primary and 2,706 votes in the November election. 

The potential suit also contends that the requirements for a new party to be recognized are unusually high compared to the majority of states.  North Dakota requires 7,000 signatures for a group to be identified as an official party.  That many signatures is greater than one percent of possible voters, only Alabama, Idaho, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Wyoming demand more than one percent for party recognition. 

The North Dakota Libertarian Party was able to gather the needed signature this year.  Winger argues that this fact demonstrates an adequate amount of interest in the party’s candidates to appear on the state ballots.