Topic: Election 2008
Libertarian Party wins more than 1,000,000 votes -- downticket Bob Barr will have to settle for 500,000 votes this time. But downticket Libertarian candidates push the LP over the million-vote barrier.by George Dance
(libertarian)
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The Libertarian Party won more than a million votes on Election Day. Just not for their national ticket.
Ballot Access News (BAN) reported November 5 that "on November 4, 2008, two Libertarians each polled over 1,000,000 votes. They are John H. Monds for Georgia Public Service Commissioner (who had only a Republican opponent) and William Bryant Strange for Judge, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, place 9 (who also had only a Republican opponent)." (1)
Libertarian candidates for Congress also collectively won over one million votes. BAN reported, also on November 5, that
Libertarian Party candidates for U.S. House will have polled over 1,000,000 votes, as soon as all the votes are counted. Preliminary figures are at 990,000, and perhaps 8% of all the votes (mostly absentees and provisionals) have not yet been counted.
The Libertarian Party also exceeded 1,000,000 for U.S. House in 2000, 2002, and 2004. (2)
The presidential slate of Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root is on track to receive at least 500,000 votes, the second highest figure for a Libertarian presidential ticket. With 98% of polls reporting, Barr and Root have 494,102 votes, just over the 485,798 won by Harry Browne and Jo Jorgensen in 1996 (though Browne's percentage was one-tenth of a point higher, in a year in which turnout fell below 50%). (3)
However, Barr's final total may improve. So far only 122 million votes have been reported, while "At least 134 million Americans participated in the election, according to early estimates, representing more than 60% of eligible voters" (4)
Bloomberg Press noted that "final totals may not be known for six weeks as states finish counting and verifying the results.... For example, in California, the most populous state, 5 percent of precincts still haven't reported complete results." (5)
UPDATE, Nov. 10: Early this morning, Bob Barr's vote count finally crossed 500,000. AOL had Barr at 500,045, with 99% of polls reported.
(3) "All National Results," AOL Elections 08 Presidential Results (accessed Nov. 6, 2008). http://news.aol.com/elections/2008/president#presResults
(4) Ewen MacAskill, Suzanne Goldenberg and Elana Schor, "Barack Obama to be America's first black president," guardian.co.uk, Nov. 5, 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/uselections20084
(5) James Rowley and Christopher Stern, "Presidential Vote Turnout May Be Highest Since 1964 (Update1)," Bloomberg Press, Nov. 6, 2008. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahcnmY0ySpxc&refer=home
The views expressed in this
article are those of George Dance only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. George Dance is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
I knew that somebody would try to paint the colossal failure of Barr as a victory.
Excuse me? All I said here about the Barr campaign was factual; I deliberately kept my own evaluation out.
Maybe your complaint is that discovering these facts makes the campaign look like a "victory" of some sort. In that case, maybe you should have looked at those facts before deciding that it was a "colossal failure."
Want to comment on this
article? Leave your comment here. Your email address is
required to track your comment. However, we will neither
publish your email address nor distribute it to other
organizations or persons. The only reason we might use
it would be if we needed to contact you regarding your
comment. All comments are subject to our
terms of use policy.
