From Liberty News Now:

If you’re going to mount an independent or third party run, the easiest way to do it is by stealing the ballot access of the Libertarian Party . . . or that’s what the GOP Establishment may think.

The LP is the third largest political party and is on track to have their presidential candidate on the ballots of 48 to 50 states in November.

Last week, anti-Trump GOP donors commissioned a study on the requirements for an independent run. The Florida firm who conducted the study, Data Targeting, had a memo leak that concluded, “it is possible to mount an independent candidacy but [it] will require immediate action on the part of this core of key funding and strategic players.”

Essentially, it was an optimistic, “we’re screwed.”

An independent candidate would need over 450,000 signatures of voters just to be on the ballot in 11 states.

Rather than spend millions of dollars on an attempt to get a candidate on the ballot that could challenge Donald Trump, it appears the GOP Establishment has been caught trying to steal the ballot access of the Libertarian Party.

With the permission of the LP, data experts dove into their anonymous Web site traffic to find that, within the last week, visitors have been searching for “Libertarian Party,” hitting LP.org, and signing up as members.

The party has received more sustained traffic in the last week than it had seen since October of 2012.

The party has also confirmed that they have had more new members join the party within the last seven days than at any time since 2008.

Unlike the Republican and Democrat parties, the LP requires a minimum donation of $25 to become a member of the party. New members must also sign a pledge tied to the principles of the party.

There are no active, new member acquisition campaigns under way by the LP, and the existing presidential candidates have driven few visitors to the site.

Read rest of article here.

On the LNC Votes list, Wes Benedict had this to say in response:

I removed some off-putting graphics from the top of LP.org that distracted people from joining, then posted a very popular poll asking people to select their preferred candidate for president, new memberships started increasing right away, and now people want to give GOP operatives credit for things that were the result of my website upgrades? Figures.

Wes Benedict, Executive Director

Libertarian National Committee, Inc.

1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314

(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict@lp.org

facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational

Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership