The Libertarian Party of Tennessee is hoping to show the absurdity of ballot access laws in the state

Nashville, TN: Members of the Libertarian Party of Tennessee (LPTN) are taking drastic measures to show the public the absurdity of ballot access laws in the state. With 25 signatures required to run as a Republican, Democrat, or Independent, and 33,844 required to run as a 3rd Party, Libertarians across the state have decided to seek the office of governor running on a shared platform: “make elections free and equal.”

In Article 1, Section 5, the Tennessee state constitution declares that elections should be free and equal. Yet, only two parties have access to the ballot and rely on state-funded primaries for their nomination process. In order to be recognized on the ballot, the Libertarian Party is up against a threshold of 2.5% of the voters in the previous governor’s race, or 33,844 signatures.