Libertarian Party

Libertarian Party
General Information
Chartered:	December 11, 1971
Officers
Chair:	Nicholas Sarwark
Vice-Chair:	Alex Merced
Secretary:	Caryn Ann Harlos
Treasurer:	Tim Hagan
Contact
Address:	1444 Duke St. Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Website:	Website
Social Media
Facebook:	Facebook
Twitter:	Twitter

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 Form 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	Nicholas Sarwark
Vice Chair	Alex Merced
Secretary	Caryn Ann Harlos
Treasurer	Tim Hagan
Regions	(see below)

Regional Representatives

LNC Regions 1-8
Red- Region 1
Orange- Region 2
Yellow- Region 3
Green- Region 4
Blue- Region 5
Purple- Region 6
Brown-Region 7
Black- Region 8
Grey- No region

Region	Representative	Alternate	States/Areas
1	Richard Longstreth	Craig Bowden	Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming
2	Steve Nekhaila	Victoria Page Lee	Florida, Georgia, Tennessee
3	Elizabeth Van Horn	Dustin Nanna	Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio
4	Jeffery Hewitt	Kenneth Brent Olsen	California, Nevada
5	Jim Lark	Susan Hogarth	North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Washington DC, South Carolina
6	John Phillips Jr.	Philip Anderson	Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Wisconsin, South Dakota
7	Whitney Bilyeu	Erin Adams	Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas
8	Jim Rosenbeck	Jeff Lyons	Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Vermont
At-Large	William Redpath
At-Large	Sam Goldstein
At-Large	Joshua Smith
At-Large	Joe Bishop Henchman
At-Large	Alicia Mattson

Party Logos

• 

  "Libersign" Logo, adopted at the 1972 Convention

• 

  Statue of Liberty, used circa 1984 to 2007

• 

  Circled Statue of Liberty, used circa 2007 to 2015

• 

  "Torch Eagle" logo used 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 exclude inactive voters.

There are 32 jurisdictions that allow registration by party. The New Hampshire LP became a ballot qualified party in November, 2016, which once again allowed voters in that state to register as Libertarians. The sole remaining state to allow voter registration by party, but not allow Libertarian registration, is Rhode Island.

	1980	1982	1984	1986	1988	1990	1992	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004	2006	2008	2010	2012	2014	2016	2018
Alabama
Alaska			1,282							3,226	6,871	7,228	7,258	8,787	6,926	8,984	7,719	7,182	7,557
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
Arkansas																			322
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
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
Connecticut							29		70	149	653	741	789	840	987	1,295	1,603	1,780	2,561
Delaware	198		227			166	344	466	566	648	738	762	776	756	756	858	908	1,116	1,519	1,716
D. C.																		510	918
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
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho																	1,312	3,856	5,229	7,425
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa															762	1,416	2,203	4,632	8,366	13,018
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
Kentucky														341	997	1,661	2,615	4,418	7,456	9,099
Louisiana	175		219				325	360		691	1,016	1,170	1,432	2,541	2,669	3,877	6,889	10,478	14,088
Maine							1,048												5,616
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
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
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska	214		91		52		194		234	70	1,790	3,402	4,717		453	320	3,117	5,719	11,214
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
New Hampshire							3,289	3,330	3,207	3,207
New Jersey												208	448	543	1,023	1,387	1,899	2,490	5,405
New Mexico	123		190							1,407	1,183	3,787	4,974	2,805	2,172	2,240	3,541	3,129	5,714
New York													362	1,061	1,545	2,680	3,874	5,376	7,128	7,675
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
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma	875		444						141		703	286	689						3,599	8,675
Oregon							3,800		10,102	11,946	13,663	12,929	16,971	15,330	13,736	13,469	15,434	17,825	19,065
Pennsylvania								4,408	13,770	23,095	30,248		34,258	36,070	36,509	38,031	36,353	47,501	48,966
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
Tennessee
Texas
Utah												1,836	2,556	2,904	2,639	4,110	5,494	7,168	11,728
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia										420	964					1,360	1,448	1,854	4,679	6,431
Wisconsin
Wyoming			54		75		78	53	181	229	246	281	328	452	878	1,288	1,139	1,862	1,615
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	259,440	235,994	242,587	278,988	330,740	400,150	501,154	562,426 (not final)
Jurisdictions Reporting	11	3	13	3	7	7	18	14	19	20	21	21	23	21	24	25	26	27	30
	1980	1982	1984	1986	1988	1990	1992	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004	2006	2008	2010	2012	2014	2016	2018

See Also

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