COLUMBUS, Ohio--After almost four years in the political wilderness, the Libertarian Party of Ohio is seeking to regain state recognition for the 2018 midterm election.

On Monday, Libertarians submitted almost 103,000 petition signatures to once again become an official "minor party" in Ohio, according to Secretary of State Jon Husted's office.

Husted's office is now checking to see whether at least 54,964 of those signatures are valid - the current threshold to become a minor party in the state. Under Ohio law, Libertarians also need 500 or more valid signatures from at least half of the state's 16 congressional districts.

If they pass those requirements, the party plans to run a candidate for governor this November: most likely Travis Irvine, a Columbus filmmaker and activist who founded a satirical group targeting Republican Gov. John Kasich.

Libertarians also are looking to run candidates for secretary of state and other offices, said Scott Pettigrew, vice chair of the Libertarian Party of Ohio's central committee.

If the party clinches state recognition, candidates would have until July 19 to submit petitions to run as a Libertarian (the filing deadline for independent and other parties' candidates has already passed). If there are multiple candidates for a single office, a five-member party committee (which includes Pettigrew) would decide which of them would appear on the 2018 general-election ballot as a Libertarian.

If the Libertarians regain ballot access, the party's main goal will be to make sure their gubernatorial candidate gets at least 3 percent of the statewide vote in November. That's the threshold minor parties in Ohio need to reach to remain on the ballot in 2020.

"If we don't get 3 percent, then this quarter-of-a-million-dollar petition drive and the 20,000 man-hours of work that went into this drive basically has been all for naught," Pettigrew said.

In the long term, Ohio Libertarians will also have to work to regain interest from voters and activists, which has dwindled since the party lost state recognition in 2014 thanks to stiffer ballot-access rules and the disqualification of their gubernatorial candidate, Charlie Earl.

"It's hard to keep people involved in a political party when you don't have candidates on the ballot," Pettigrew said.