To avoid discussing legal strategy publicly, details of the consultation with an attorney will not be disclosed here. There are, however, several important legal factors that anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Delaware ballot access laws should either know or be able to easily find out.
The most important of these is that Delaware ballot access is not determined by petitioning except in the very rare instance of an unaffiliated candidate. In fact, the petitioning process for an unaffiliated candidate has only been completed once in a local state legislative election. The process for "major" parties with more than 5% of the total number of registered voters is through primary elections. Candidates file a form with only their own signature with the local Department of Elections and pay a filing fee and they're on the primary ballot. "Minor" political parties with less than 5% but more than 0.1% of the total number of registered voters have ballot access, with their nominations determined in convention with certificates of nomination signed by the Chair, Secretary, and the candidate themselves.
The statewide Commissioner of Elections and the various county level Departments are required to accept the nominations from the "regularly organized and constituted [statewide/county] governing authority of a political party". This means the established, continuous organization that is known to the State, operating based on its own governing documents. That's it. There are no requirements spelled out for how conventions need to be conducted. There are not prescribed structures for governing the organization. The Libertarian Party of Delaware is considered an "unincorporated association" no different from any other organization whether it's a political party or an investment club or a church group.
The LNC has neither the authority nor the ability to reach into Delaware and change the recognized bylaws or leadership of the Libertarian Party of Delaware. The entirety of the registered Libertarians in the State don't even have that power. Certainly the ~20 people who came to the 2021 LPD Convention associated with the Mises Caucus can't do that. The only means of changing the governing rules or leadership of the organization are the organization itself through its established procedures, or a Delaware Court after finding that those procedures were not followed.
They were.
The MCDE has been threatening legal action since October. To our knowledge they have raised a few hundred dollars and still retain custody of ~$3,000 that belongs to the New Castle County affiliate. Meanwhile we have raised over $3,000 without asking publicly as we are now doing through this website. The purpose of this funding is to ensure that the Libertarian Party of Delaware is adequately represented and pursues the most expeditious legal strategy possible. We would like the money, contributed by our members to a ballot qualified county affiliate. We would like our social media assets back. There's a decent number of followers there and the existence of multiple accounts is confusing to the public and even to our own membership. We would like this settled once and for all so the LNC stops pretending it has a role to play here and putting the 50 state ballot access and unity of the Libertarian Party at risk. Here's where you can help by sending us a donation.
