Chrissie Thompson

cthompson@enquirer.com

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian who has won over some anti-Donald Trump conservatives, will appear on Ohio's presidential election ballot, the state said Wednesday.

Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, will appear on the ballot as an independent candidate. Doing so required his backers to file 5,000 signatures that had to be verified by Ohio counties and the Ohio secretary of state. Johnson's supporters filed 7,619, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said Wednesday.

In qualifying for the ballot in the quintessential swing state, Johnson boots his credibility as a national candidate and offers an option to some who say they don't like the Republican option in Trump or the Democratic choice in Hillary Clinton. Johnson has reached just over half of the 15 percent in national polls that would gain him entrance into the general election debates.

Ohio voters don't like Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Now what?

Libertarians used a couple of unorthodox methods to get Johnson on the ballot. First, they filed him as an independent candidate. The Libertarian Party right now doesn't have official recognition as a minor party on Ohio ballots because it didn't field a candidate for governor in 2014. The party's candidate, former state representative Charlie Earl, was disqualified because contractors gathering signatures to qualify him for the election failed to disclose who was paying them.

But when Johnsons' supporters first filed their signatures, Earl was listed as their presidential candidate. They later asked to substitute Johnson's name, a switch that Husted approved. Libertarian leaders said they gathered signatures under Earl's name because when they started circulating petitions, Johnson had yet to win the party's nomination.

Along with Trump, Clinton and Johnson, Ohio voters will be able to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, a Massachusetts physician. Richard Duncan, a perennial independent candidate for office from Portage County, also qualified for the presidential ballot.