Libertarians suing secretary of state

BANGOR, Maine — The Libertarian Party last week sued Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap in U.S. District Court in an effort to get the names of its candidates for president and vice president on the Nov. 4 ballot.

The lawsuit filed Thursday claims that because of an instruction from Dunlap’s office to municipal clerks, the party collected 5,700 signatures but was short the required 4,000 validated signatures needed to place Bob Barr and Wayne A. Root on the ballot.

The complaint alleges that Dunlap’s office improperly told municipal clerks not to certify signatures on petitions received after Aug. 8. That instruction, according to the lawsuit, kept the names of the party’s nominees off the ballot.

State law requires that petitions for candidates and citizen-initiated referenda be submitted to municipal clerks a week to 10 days before they must be submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office to give clerks time to validate signatures, Dunlap said Saturday. The deadline for petitions to be in the Secretary of State’s Office in order to get Barr’s and Root’s names on the ballot this year was Aug. 15.

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