Libertarian Party

Libertarian Party
General Information
Chartered:	December 11, 1971
Officers
Chair:	Angela McArdle
Vice-Chair:	Andrew Watkins
Secretary:	Caryn Ann Harlos
Treasurer:	Todd Hagopian
Contact
Address:	1444 Duke St. Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Website:	Website
Social Media
Facebook:	Facebook
Twitter:	Twitter
Instagram:	Instagram

The Libertarian Party is a United States political party founded in 1971. The LP is the largest third party in the United States.

The Libertarian Party was founded on the basic ideas of Libertarianism. This philosophy is rooted in the Non-Aggression Principle and ideas such as Self-Ownership, The Ownership of Property, and the Objectivist notion of man as a heroic being.

Founded by David Nolan and several of his colleagues, the LP has grown to considerable size, reaching more than 4 million votes in the 2016 presidential election, and is the first party to have a female candidate on its presidential ticket receive an electoral vote. In 2006, over 13,400,000 votes were cast for Libertarian candidates.

The LP runs on a grassroots Jeffersonian ideal where individuals take the stand. The party has people from all political breeds, and has many variations on it's main ideas, yet the major ideas hold true.

Founding and Early Years

In 1971, the Committee to Organize a Libertarian Party was established to determine if a new political party was needed, or if one of the existing political parties was suitable. It has been documented that Richard Nixon's 90 day price and wage freeze in August of that year was a deciding factor in the decision to form the LP.

On 11 December, the committee pulled the trigger, and the committee was replaced by the Libertarian Party. Notice was published in Reason Magazine and possibly other places, which helped efforts to bootstrap the party going into its First National Convention.

At the Denver convention, Ed Carlson proposed a Statement of Principles, and the final draft was a minor variation of one proposed by John Hospers. It was expected that other planks would be routinely removed from the platform as they ceased to be timely or relevant. The Libertarian National Committee was set up, Susan Nolan was elected national chair, and the first national ticket was John Hospers for President and Tonie Nathan for Vice President.

While the Libertarian Party soon discovered the hard way how difficult it was to get on ballots, its presence on two states was adequate to attract the attention of an unhappy Republican elector, Roger MacBride, who gave the Hospers/Nathan ticket his vote, making Tonie Nathan the first woman and the first ethnic Jew to receive an electoral vote.

History

Main Article: History of the Libertarian Party

Current LNC Officers

Main Article: Libertarian National Committee

Position	Name
Chair	Angela McArdle
Vice-Chair	Joshua Smith
Secretary	Caryn Ann Harlos
Treasurer	Todd Hagopian
Regions	(see below)

Regional Representatives

Region	Representative	Alternate	States/Areas
1	Miguel Duque	Kathy Yeniscavich	Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Washington
2	Dave Benner	Martin Cowen	Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee
3	Dustin Nanna	Connor Nepomuceno	Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio
4	Adrian F Malagon	Joshua Clark	California
5	Andrew Watkins	Otto Dassing	Washington DC, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia
6	Joseph Ecklund	Mark Tuniewicz	Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, Wisconsin
7	Beth Vest	Paul Darr	Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas
8	Pat Ford	Robley Hall	Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont

Party Logos

• 

  "Libersign" Logo, adopted at the 1972 Convention: seldom used after 1980

• 

  Classical Statue Logo, used by the LNC from 1980 to 2007

• 

  Circled Statue of Liberty, used by the LNC circa 2007 to 2015

• 

  "Torch Eagle" logo used by the LNC since 2015

Party Registration

Voter registration statistics as reported by various state government web sites, Ballot Access News, and dehnbase.org/lpus/library/registration.html

These voter registration statistics are not year end numbers. Although some states report statistics monthly, others only report them in even years, in the three week period between mid October and the November general election. In order to create the most accurate snapshot of the number registered Libertarians nationally, all numbers come from within that three week period. If more than one number was reported within that period, the number closest to the general election was used.

Some states report both active voters and inactive voters. The numbers below only include active voters, when that number is known.

There are 32 jurisdictions that allow registration by party. Rhode Island is the only state to allow voter registration by party, but has never allowed Libertarian registration.

Party Registration by Year
	1980	1982	1984	1986	1988	1990	1992	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004	2006	2008	2010	2012	2014	2016	2018	2020	2022
Alabama
Alaska			1,282							3,226	6,871	7,228	7,258	8,787	6,926	8,984	7,719	7,182	7,557	7,442	6,958	7,009
Arizona	2,839	3,721	3,965		4,937	4,632	5,299	7,574	18,418	17,466	12,576	14,259	18,261	17,446	18,153	24,382	22,086	26,589	31,358	31,583	38,385	32,148
Arkansas																			322	403	618	725
California	86,193	73,434	64,297	53,267	49,075	50,782	71,148	69,951	77,675	82,079	94,937	90,495	89,617	84,093	83,574	91,111	108,736	120,804	139,805	149,095	196,108	231,459
Colorado			576	753	1,033	1,258	1,660	1,942	2,420	3,201	4,259	5,543	6,078	6,555	11,075	10,549	19,585	26,746	37,880	39,979	41,803	41,052
Connecticut							29		70	149	653	741	789	840	987	1,295	1,603	1,780	2,561	2,980	3,270	3,351
Delaware	198		227			166	344	466	566	648	738	762	776	756	756	858	908	1,116	1,519	1,716	1,977	2,211
D. C.																		510	918	1,374	2,079	2,406
Florida	650				1,336	1,516	2,909	3,585	5,509	7,037	9,462	11,852	13,806	15,533	16,883	17,888	19,892	23,665	28,287	32,843	39,538	39,451
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho																	1,312	3,856	5,229	7,425	10,450	11,356
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa															762	1,416	2,203	4,632	8,366	13,018	13,013	12,100
Kansas						531	4,204	5,508	9,829	9,773	9,973	9,416	9,432	9,038	9,786	10,088	11,373	12,993	15,556	17,618	20,353	24,230
Kentucky														341	997	1,661	2,615	4,418	7,456	9,099	13,511	15,572
Louisiana	175		219				325	360		691	1,016	1,170	1,432	2,541	2,669	3,877	6,889	10,478	14,088	14,730	15,000 estimate	16,180
Maine							1,048												5,616	6,255		1,227
Maryland	328		350				2,692		3,785		4,021	6,578	2,626	4,390	7,058	8,996	11,289	14,771	19,343	22,190	14,848	17,712
Massachusetts							204	333	8,157	7,610	16,071	20,578	23,900	19,253	12,534	15,857	13,336	10,920	8,846	15,787	19,097	17,493
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska	214		91		52		194		234	70	1,790	3,402	4,716		472	333	3,164	5,719	11,214	14,707	17,882	18,370
Nevada	676	1,003	911	692	739	1,125	2,315	2,847	3,833	4,819	4,715	4,891	6,240	6,088	6,776	6,807	8,448	9,739	13,381	15,588	17,833	16,330
New Hampshire							3,289	3,330	3,207	3,207										689
New Jersey												208	448	543	1,023	1,387	1,899	2,490	5,405	11,040	18,709	23,522
New Mexico	123		190							1,407	1,183	3,787	4,974	2,805	2,172	2,240	3,541	3,129	5,714	9,440	12,390	14,828
New York													362	941	1,395	2,419	3,874	5,376	7,128	7,675	20,298	19,420
North Carolina	489		560				677	1,472	2,585	4,740	6,909	8,912	12,831		3,637	9,254	19,321	25,650	32,333	37,431	46,363	50,205
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma	875		444						141		703	286	689						3,599	8,675	14,902	19,780
Oregon							3,800		10,102	11,946	13,663	12,929	16,971	15,306	13,736	13,469	15,157	17,460	18,432	19,944	21,932	21,021
Pennsylvania								4,408	13,770	23,095	30,248		34,258	36,070	36,509	38,031	36,353	47,501	48,966	44,848	40,324	44,915
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota							346	469	656	924	1,074	1,148	1,091	1,168	1,059	1,080	1,126	1,377	1,620	1,835	2,324	2,801
Tennessee
Texas
Utah												1,836	2,556	2,904	2,639	4,110	5,494	7,226	11,728	13,815	18,445	20,433
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia										420	964					1,360	1,448	1,854	4,679	6,431	8,797	10,026
Wisconsin
Wyoming			54		75		78	53	181	229	246	281	328	452	878	1,288	1,139	1,862	1,615	2,183	2,012	2,228
Total	92,760	78,158	73,166	54,712	57,247	60,010	100,561	102,298	162,545	182,513	224,676	207,489	259,439	235,850	242,456	278,740	330,510	399,843	500,521	567,838	679,219	739,561
Change From Preceding Period		-14,602	-4,992	-18,454	2,535	2,763	40,551	1,737	60,247	19,968	42,163	-17,187	51,950	-23,589	6,606	36,284	51,770	69,333	100,678	67,317	111,381	60,342
% In Reporting Jurisdictions							0.21%	0.23%	0.28%	0.32%	0.34%	0.34%	0.30%	0.30%	0.26%	0.30%	0.33%	0.40%	0.45%	0.50%	0.57%	0.62%
Jurisdictions Reporting	11	3	13	3	7	7	18	14	19	20	21	21	23	21	24	25	26	27	30	31	29	30
	1980	1982	1984	1986	1988	1990	1992	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004	2006	2008	2010	2012	2014	2016	2018	2020	2022

Incorporation

The Libertarian National Committee which is the current governing arm of the Party (preceded by the Libertarian Party Executive Committee) was incorporated in 1995 (info).

Trademark

The party hold multiple trademarks as follows:

• TANSTAAFL logo (trademark registration not found-mentioned in early LP News issues)
• Libertarian Party (info)
• Party of Principle (info)
• Torch Eagle Logo (info)

National Conventions

Yearly Conventions (1972-1979)
Year	Date(s)	Venue	City
1972	June 15-18		Denver, Colorado
1973	June 8-10		Strongsville, Ohio
1974	June		Irving, Texas
1975	August	Statler-Hilton Hotel	New York, New York
1976	September 23-26		Washington DC
1977	July 12-17	Palace Hotel	San Francisco
1978	September	Copley Plaza Hotel	Boston, Massachusetts
1979		Bonaventure Hotel	Los Angeles, California
Biannual, Odd Years (1981-1993)
1981			Denver, Colorado
1983		Sheraton Centre	New York, New York
1985			Phoenix, Arizona
1987	September		Seattle, Washington
1989		Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel	Seattle, Washington
1991	August		Chicago, Illinois
1993			Salt Lake City, Utah
Biannual, Even Years (1996-present)
1996	July 3-7	Hyatt Regency	Washington DC
1998			Washington DC
2000	June 30-July 4		Anaheim, California
2002	July 3-7		Indianapolis, Indiana
2004	May 27-31	Mariott Marquis Hotel	Atlanta, Georgia
2006	July 1-2	Hilton Portland & Executive Tower	Portland, Oregon
2008	May 22-26	Sheraton Denver	Denver, Colorado
2010	May 28-31	Renaissance Hotel	St. Louis, Missouri
2012	May 4-6	Red Rock Resort Spa and Casino	Las Vegas, Nevada
2014	June 26-29	Hyatt Regency	Cleveland, Ohio
2016	May 26-30	Rosen Centre Hotel & Resort	Orlando, Florida
2018	June 30-July 3	Hyatt Regency	New Orleans, Louisiana
2020	May 22; July 8-12	Orange County Convention Center	Orlando, Florida
2022	May 26-29	Nugget Casino Resort	Reno/Sparks, Nevada

See Also

• Libertarians Stance on Issues
• Memoir Mickey, Me and the LP by D. Frank Robinson, regarding early formation of the party.