An “expletive-show.” With slight variation, that’s what Denver District Judge Sarah B. Wallace feared the state Libertarian Party’s October convention would turn into absent her oversight, according to Seth Klamann’s October 26 article. Party members threw out old leadership and elected a new board promising to take the party back to its roots. I caught wind of this via Ross Kaminsky’s October 28 interview with new state chair Keith Laube.

I left the Libertarian Party soon after its 2002 candidate for U.S. Senate distributed racist and pro-violence emails; that candidate eventually ended up in prison for threatening a judge. More recently, the LP largely has been overrun by “a bunch of right-wing nationalist Twitter edgelords,” as libertarian lawyer Ilya Somin memorably put the point.

I was glad to see that Laube reconfirmed the LP’s support for LGBTQ rights. As Klamann reported earlier this year, the previous state party chair used anti-gay slurs in a social media flamewar. That chair wrote, “I’m the chair of the party. So . . . no (expletive) given.” (I’m pretty sure this expletive is different from the previous one; it’s hard to keep track.)

I don’t spend the time these days keeping up with the finer details of As the LP Turns. But it does seem like the new leadership is a step in a better direction. (For what it’s worth, ChatGPT agrees and offers some relevant links.)

But, although Laube hopes to run more candidates and maybe even pick up some local races, the LP will not become a significant political force. You can take that fact to the expletive bank. So why should anyone care?

The problem with spoilers

Laube told Kaminski that he thinks Libertarian candidates largely draw votes that otherwise would not be cast. But some Libertarians and Republicans think the “spoiler effect” is real. As Klamann reports, “In 2024, Republican challenger [Gabe] Evans signed the [LP’s] liberty pledge, and his Libertarian opponent dropped out.” Evans faces another tight race next year.

I agree “spoiler” isn’t the best term, but it’s widely recognized and I don’t have a better substitute. Anyway, the issue is that, given our voting rules, whenever more than two candidates appear on the ballot for a given race, some voters face the possibility that a vote for their most-favored candidate could help throw the race to their least-favored candidate.

Our voting rules are stupid. I favor approval voting to eliminate the spoiler effect. The idea is that a voter can vote for as many candidates in a race as they want. So, let’s say a voter most-prefers Candidate Abe, more-or-less likes Candidate Betty, and dislikes Candidate Carl. If the voter is worried about Abe’s chances, they can vote both for Abe and Betty. Ranked-choice voting also solves the spoiler effect, but it has some important quirks, and it makes for a complex ballot prone to voter errors.

Another possibility is to move to an open primary with approval voting (or, worse, ranked-choice voting) to narrow the final ballot to two candidates. But I’d rather just get rid of primaries altogether.

Separate party and state

Given I used to produce the state LP’s newsletter, I happen to have some old copies on my hard drive. Using ChatGPT and Wikipedia to jog my memory, I pulled up the May, 1998 edition (this was before my time with the newsletter). The front-page headline: “It’s Official! We’re a Party! Romer Signs HB 98-1110.” Under the headline is a photo of Governor Roy Romer signing the bill as Democratic Representative Ron Tupa (a bill sponsor), Libertarian Party member David Aitken, and others look on.

The article begins, “The Libertarian Party . . . has become Colorado’s first fully qualified minor political party. ‘This great news for the Libertarian Party and our 2,900 members in Colorado is due to Governor Romer’s signing of HB 98-1110 on April 13,’ said LibertarianParty of Colorado Chairman Sandra Johnson, of Ft. Garland.”

Basically, the bill defined minor parties in law and gave them easier ballot access. At the time, I supported the law. Now I regard it as a big mistake, even a pact with the devil.

The correct libertarian position, I now believe, is to separate party and state, not to give certain groups special government privileges. It’s true that the older system gave the major parties government privileges at the expense of minor parties. But the right path forward was not to give the minor parties the same perks, but to remove government privilege from all parties.

Government should grant equal ballot access to all comers, regardless of party, presumably through petition requirements. I think it’s well past time to embrace online petitioning in some form; this is the Twenty First Century, after all.

Parties should be strictly private organizations. Government should not track people by party affiliation nor list parties on ballots. And government definitely should not fund party primaries! That the LP is now the recipient of such government subsidies should give today’s party members pause.

I hope that Laube and the new Libertarian leadership consider supporting approval voting and embrace the cause of separating party and state. It’s the libertarian thing to do. Meanwhile, I wish Laube success in restoring the LP to the Party of Principle.

Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.