Columbus, Ohio - The Libertarian Party of Ohio (LPO) has been advised by the Secretary of State (SoS) that they have achieved Ballot Access through the 2010 election. The SoS has determined that the LPO is now considered a minor party and will have the rights of other minor political parties in Ohio. The name "Libertarian" will be used on ballots. In the coming weeks the SoS will be issuing a Directive or Advisory to all Board of Elections in Ohio concerning the recent changes in status.

This is great news following an extremely mixed election. In most races Libertarians did extremely well, garnering up to 18% of the vote in some cases, however we experienced a crushing loss in the presidential election with the Barr / Root ticket only winning 0.4% of the vote.^[1] Which I think was caused by the stark polarization in the major party race. Since both candidates were quite controversial people seemed to align themselves with one side or the other mostly because they didn't want to let the "other guy" win. This, I think, is an unfortunate side effect of our system as it tends to encourage people to vote against the worst candidate instead of voting for the better candidate.