A three-member state panel upheld objections to the candidacy of three Iowa libertarian congressional candidates on Wednesday in a 2-1 decision.
The decision effectively removes the candidates from the Nov. 5 general election ballot, though they can ask a district court to intervene.
The objections were brought by Republican activists, county party officials, and political candidates represented by Alan Ostergren on Wednesday.
The three Libertarian candidates who were disqualified from the ballot include Nicholas Gluba, the candidate for Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, Marco Battaglia, the candidate for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, and Charles Aldrich in the 4th Congressional District.
The state panel that hears candidacy objections consists of Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate, Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird, and Democratic State Auditor Rob Sand. Sand was the only member of the panel to vote against the objection to the candidacy of the three libertarians.
The objectors argued that the Libertarian Party of Iowa failed to properly conduct county conventions, making their special conventions where they nominated the congressional candidates null and void, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette.
The Iowa Libertarian Party conducted their precinct and county conventions on the same day on Jan. 15, but lawyers for the objectors argued that Iowa code specifies that delegate terms don’t start until the following day.
The objectors argued that since the county conventions were done incorrectly, the special conventions to nominate the three congressional candidates were invalid.
The Libertarian Party gained major party status in 2022 when its gubernatorial candidate Rick Stewart gained 2 percent of the vote, making them subject to Iowa’s laws regarding major political parties.
Sand said the panel’s decision “nit-picked” Libertarian Party business and bucked the Supreme Court precedent that says states should not interfere in party business.
“This is a wrong-headed plot by Iowa’s uniparty to limit voters’ choices and prop up a broken, two-party system,” Sand said in a news release on Wednesday. “I stand against it.”
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Libertarian candidate Gluba, who was seeding a seat in Iowa’s 1st Congressional district, said Republicans on the panel had political motivations for upholding the objection.
“I was not shocked as the panel is stacked against us via political party affiliation,” Gluba wrote in an email to The Daily Iowan. “The two votes to sustain the objection came from the two Republican party members on the panel. The one dissenting vote came from the only Democrat sitting on the panel. The result was predictable.”
The absence of a libertarian candidate on the ballot could make a difference in close races, which are expected in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts. U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, was a first-term incumbent who won by less than 2,000 votes in 2022 with no libertarian candidate on the ballot.
Gluba and other candidates are working on appealing the decision with Iowa courts.