Chas Sisk

Another minor party has sued to get its candidates recognized on the ballot this November.

The Libertarian Party of Tennessee, gubernatorial nominee Daniel T. Lewis and two Middle Tennessee voters say in a suit filed in federal court late last month that the state discriminates against minor parties by forcing organizers to gather too many signatures too long before the election.

Libertarians hope to join the Green Party and the Constitution Party as third parties that have been recognized for this November’s vote. A federal judge in Nashville granted those parties access to the ballot earlier this year in a similar lawsuit.

Tennessee law requires Libertarians and other third parties to turn in about 40,000 signatures at least 90 days before the general election to have their candidates recognized on the general election ballot. Otherwise, those candidates appear as “independents.”

Only one minor party, former Alabama Gov. George Wallace’s American Party, has ever met Tennessee’s signature requirement.

Libertarians ask the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee to order Secretary of State Tre Hargett and state coordinator of election Mark Goins to grant Lewis and the party’s other candidates recognition in time for the Nov. 4 election, just as it has for the Greens and Constitutionalists.

A spokesman for Hargett and Goins declined to comment. The Greens and Constitutionalists’ suit currently is under appeal.

Reach Chas Sisk at 615-259-8283 and on Twitter @chassisk.