[Lnc-business] Oklahoma petition drive

Fri Jun 19 13:29:46 EDT 2015

Mr. Bittner:

If this board wants to think critically and with electoral ramifications in
mind about ballot access, then we would do whatever we could to support NOTA
for President in 2016, obviously constrained by the Bylaws, Convention
Rules, and the Policy Manual.

If we could somehow motivate our state affiliates to put in as much effort
into running credible statewide candidates for Governor or Railroad
Commissioner or whatever for the sole purpose of retaining ballot access as
they put into the Presidential campaign, then our ballot access problems
would **essentially** disappear.  

Electoral votes are meaningless unless you have a chance of winning a
majority of them.

If I have to, I can dig up a Richard Winger e-mail that details the 2 or 3
or whatever it was number of times that an LP Presidential Nominee was the
sole nominee who retained ballot access in a state.  In other words - we do
NOT need to run a Presidential Nominee to help us retain ballot access in
any state.  (CT might be one of the "exceptions, but Gary Johnson did not
achieve the 1% threshold in CT in 2012).

   Scott Lieberman

  _____  

From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of
Brett Bittner
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 10:00 AM
To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] Oklahoma petition drive

Dr. Lieberman, 

While I would like to see New York maintain the access we fund via National,
yet they are not the issue we are faced with currently. 

If you would like to bring New York's access into the discussion, I would be
more likely to support the motion for Oklahoma at 1/4th the cost of NY.  New
York has nearly 4 times the number of electoral votes (27) as Oklahoma.
Behind California and Texas, they stand third in terms of electoral votes. 

Why not think critically and with electoral ramifications in mind about
ballot access? Should we not consider spending donor funds as carefully as
our own? 

Brett Bittner 

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**This message sent from my phone. Please excuse any typos.

On Jun 19, 2015 12:34 PM, "Scott L." <scott73 at earthlink.net> wrote:

Mr. Bittner:

The LNC has voted to fund ballot access drives in New York every 2 years for
many decades, even though the LPNY has never been able to retain ballot
access after their quadrennial off-year elections.

All they need is about 1.2% of the vote for Governor, but they have never
achieved that threshold.  The layout of the NY ballot makes getting votes a
little more difficult than in other states, but since the Green Party has
retained ballot status at least twice in NY without cross-endorsing the
Democrat, retaining ballot status in NY can be done.

If the people on this board think it is OK to keep dumping money into NY
every two years for ballot access, then they should also be in favor of
funding the 2015 ballot drive in Oklahoma.

If we don't achieve 50 state ballot status for the 2016 Presidential
Nominee, then it doesn't really matter if it is 48 or 46 or 44 states.  So,
if we sacrifice Oklahoma, then we might as well sacrifice another 6 or 7
states and save a lot more money and/or use that money for expenses like 

paying down the mortgage or for fundraising expenses.

  Scott Lieberman

  _____  

All,

I believe one of our most important duties as the committee that guides the
national party is to ensure ballot access for our Presidential nominee every
four years. This motion concerns me, as we would amend the budget to spend
more than double its previous size for ballot access in a single state, a
state that has historically been VERY difficult to gain access in. I don't
recall in our Alexandria meeting last year any discussion of "50 state
ballot access" for our Presidential nominee in our goal-setting discussion. 

I believe that we should be on the ballot in as many states as possible,
however spending such a large sum on a single state (that has only 7
electoral votes) seems a bit drastic. Shouldn't we focus on getting as many
of the easier (and less expensive) states secured before taking on such a
large responsibility? Also, what skin does Oklahoma have in the game? Are
they raising the $5000 we aren't? Are they providing some sort of support?
Or is this a situation where the state affiliate has their hand out without
a plan for helping their own activity?

One of the risks of project-based fundraising is that you are stuck with the
funds going to the activity outlined. Otherwise, we may have to return funds
to donors or break the law by using the funds elsewhere. If we raise $59k,
are we prepared to return $59k to donors and telling them that we couldn't
fund their project due to a lack of other support?

I intend to cast a "no" vote, should Dr. Feldman not vote for the reasons
outlined above.

Brett C. Bittner

Region 3 Alternate

Libertarian National Committee

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On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 11:53 AM, Sean O'Toole <sean at kingfieldcapital.com>
wrote:

Dan:
The way I read the motion, any outflow will need to be matched by earmarked
inflow. I realize that this may effect overall fundraising but targeted
fundraising such as what will be needed to fulfill the outflow specified in
the motion has been, in my experience in Missouri, well received by donors.

Sean

Sean O'Toole
sean at kingfieldcapital.com
(816) 739-2737 <tel:%28816%29%20739-2737> 

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:

I'm concerned about the proposed Oklahoma petition drive and how it fits
into our overall efforts for ballot access next year.  The LNC's finances
are very fragile right now, and we will be facing the usual huge expenses
in 2016 to get our Presidential candidate on the ballot in a number of
different states.  We're not starting out with a surplus to draw on, as we
did in 2012.  So it will be a big challenge.

While I'd love to include Oklahoma and be successful in all fifty states,
I'm also trying to be realistic.  $65,000 for Oklahoma is a lot of money.
The way this motion is phrased, we'd have to get $60,000 in contributions
dedicated specifically to Oklahoma before proceeding, which is all well and
good.  But that seems likely to cannibalize contributions for our other
ballot access efforts.

Raising money is not a zero-sum game, and different donors may be willing
to contribute to different projects.  I can see how "ballot access" will
appeal to some people who aren't interested in the building fund or general
LNC operations or whatever.  But will "ballot access" type donors be
interested in Oklahoma in contrast to other states?  If there's only a
limited amount of money we can raise for all our ballot access efforts next
year, will the $65,000 for Oklahoma drained from that pool prevent us from
getting on several other states?

So before I'm willing to vote Yes on this motion, I'll need to hear some
convincing arguments that it won't damage our other ballot access
requirements.

Dan Wiener 

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