Indiana law sets a clear, neutral standard: any political party whose candidate for Secretary of State receives at least 2% of the vote earns automatic ballot access for the next four years. The Libertarian Party of Indiana has met that standard in every single cycle since Steve Dillon first crossed the 2% threshold in 1994, often comfortably. In 2020, Donald Rainwater earned 11.44% of the vote for governor, the highest statewide Libertarian total in a three-way race anywhere in the country that year. For 32 years, we are the only minor party to hold ballot access throughout the state.

That access wasn’t given to us. It was earned the only way it can be earned under Indiana law: by voters. Every four years, tens of thousands of Hoosiers renew it at the ballot box. No lawsuit, no legislative favor, no backroom deal. Just voters choosing to keep a third option on their ballot. If ballot access means anything, it means exactly this: a standard set in law, met election after election, by the people themselves.

And Hoosiers aren’t just voting Libertarian. They’re being governed by Libertarians. Today there are 12 elected Libertarians serving in office across Indiana, on city and town councils, as town judges, and on township boards. At least two dozen more Libertarians serve in appointed roles on partisan boards and commissions. The longest-standing example is Mark Rutherford, who was appointed to the Indiana Public Defender Commission by Republican Governor Mitch Daniels in 2007 and has chaired it since 2008. He remains chair of the commission (now the Indiana Commission on Court Appointed Attorneys) today, with a term running through 2027. When a Republican governor trusts a Libertarian to help safeguard the constitutional right to counsel for nearly two decades, that is not a fringe party. That is a party doing the work of governing.

And our value to Hoosiers doesn’t depend on winning. A Libertarian on the ballot means no incumbent gets a free pass. In a state where far too many races would otherwise go uncontested, a Libertarian challenger forces officeholders to actually campaign: to show up, answer questions, defend their record, and explain what they’ve done or failed to do with the power voters gave them. That is accountability, and it only exists when voters have somewhere else to go. Competition also moves policy. When Libertarian candidates pull real vote totals on issues like property taxes, government spending, and personal freedom, the major parties take notice and adjust, because ignoring tens of thousands of voters is how you lose the next election. Ideas that start on our ballot line have a way of ending up in the winners’ platforms. That is a win for Hoosiers even in races we lose.

Some will suggest the standard exists to keep ballots “manageable.” But the standard already does its job. It is a real bar, and a federal appeals court has affirmed it as such. Parties that don’t meet it face a petition drive of roughly 45,000 hand-collected signatures. We’ve never asked to be exempt from the test. We’ve simply kept passing it. The burden of proof does not fall on a party that has met the legal standard for 32 straight years. It falls on anyone who would take choices away from Hoosier voters.

The Libertarian Party of Indiana believes Hoosiers should have as many options on the ballot as possible. Our ballot access belongs to the voters who keep granting it, and every four years, they do.

In Liberty,
Evan McMahon
Chair, Libertarian Party of Indiana