Note: The Libertarian Club of New York (LCNY), an independent political club licensed by the state of NY,* has announced it is endorsing GOP candidate Lee Zeldin for Governor, as a “Plan B” in light of LPNY candidate Larry Sharpe failing to make it on the ballot. The club did so despite the Zeldin campaign having participated in submitting over 13,000 fake petition signatures to BOE to also get on the ballot on a separate third party line. Sharpe himself is continuing his campaign on a write-in basis following the appeal hearing on the issue on September 9, where the judge basically ignored all of his arguments (including constitutional ones) for LPNY to be restored to official ballot status. QL continues to support LPNY nominee Sharpe, who has provided an update on his situation in the video below.
*As LCNY lists no staff or members on its site, from its rhetoric Queens Libertarians suspects the group was started by “the Tarnoff/Donoyan group” from Long Island who smeared and railroaded QL/original LPQC out of its charter in 2016 as a chapter of LPNY. It as well disrupted other chapters at that time, and still wants the state organization to return to its bylaws apparatus of 2018, whose rules it gamed to revoke then-LPQC’s charter. For the record, QL has not pursued having a state license as it does not regard itself as a political club, but more as a party chapter in exile, that is eventually transitioning into a PAC. Excerpt from the LCNY release:
Fellow Libertarian,
As you may already know, the Libertarian Party of New York lost automatic ballot access when it lost official party status, after the November 2020 elections. Now, it must petition as an independent nominating body in order to obtain ballot access. It did not collect enough signatures to gain ballot access for NYS Governor. It is not included in the NYS Board of Elections listing http://publicreporting.elections.ny.gov/WhoFiled/WhoFiled. Thus, there will not be a Libertarian Party candidate for Governor of New York State on the ballot in the November 2022 election. It should go without saying that the probability of that decision being overturned is low.
Rather than just give up and passively accept a Kathy Hochul reelection, let us consider the best alternative. We can identify the most libertarian of the opposition candidates and endorse him. You will recall that we, the Libertarian Club of New York, put the question of a gubernatorial endorsement to our members in a poll. The result was a tie between Lee Zeldin and Rob Astorino. Now that Lee Zeldin has won his party’s primary election, he has the club’s unconditional endorsement. Please note that we have endorsed one specific candidate for one specific office. We have no position on any other candidates of any party who are running for any office. This endorsement has been in the works for many months and we are now ready to go with a detailed plan of action. We intend to publicize our endorsement far and wide. If the election is close, the libertarian voting bloc could wield the decisive votes…