Ohioans this fall may get to pick from 10 candidates for president, including an Aurora man who’s admitted having no chance of winning in the past but will try again for a fourth time, a Northeast Ohio Republican who dreams of eradicating terrorism by harnessing solar radiation and a Libertarian forced by state law to run as an independent.
Already on the ballot are Republican Donald Trump, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein of the Green Party, which secured a spot on the ballot after its 2014 gubernatorial candidate, Anita Rios, gained at least 2 percent of the vote.
Seven more candidates made their move Wednesday afternoon, filing at least 5,000 signatures each to become independent candidates for president on the November ballot in Ohio.
Among the more prominent names is Libertarian Charlie Earl, who said he filed more than 12,000 signatures to hold a spot for Gary Johnson, the national Libertarian Party candidate.
Johnson ran in 2012, earning nearly 50,000 Ohio votes, or less than 1 percent of the total vote. He needed twice as many votes to guarantee his party a spot on the 2016 ballot.
Earl attempted to run for governor in 2014, seeking enough votes to keep the party’s state-recognized status and a spot in 2016.
Before the 2014 election, though, Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, squashed Earl’s candidacy, citing a technicality in state law that requires paid petitioners to disclose who they work for when collecting signatures.
In a bill that Libertarians decried as the “[Gov. John] Kasich Re-election Protection Act,” Ohio Republicans upped the threshold for ongoing ballot access to 3 percent of the vote.
Libertarians are suing Husted and the state for changing the rules, which makes it more difficult for minor parties to run candidates in Ohio, and for throwing Earl off the ballot in 2014.
With the lawsuit meandering through federal court, Ohio Libertarians began gathering signatures in March to get Earl, not Johnson, on the ballot.
If the lawsuit fails, Ohio Libertarian Party spokesman Aaron Keith Harris explained, Earl and running mate Ken Moellman Jr. of Kentucky will let Johnson and his running mate, Bill Weld, take their place.
Husted spokesman Joshua Eck couldn’t comment on the legality of the proposed candidate swap. Local boards of election have yet to certify Earl’s 12,000 signatures.
“Although this process is complicated, it was the only course available for the Libertarian Party and the Johnson/Weld campaign because of the laws disingenuously passed and arbitrarily enforced by the Republican Party operatives who control Ohio’s elections,” Harris said in a press release Tuesday.
Johnson and Weld are former Republican governors of New Mexico and Massachusetts, respectively. Their supporters see in them the potential for compromise as the Libertarian ideology melds social liberalism and fiscal restraint, blending low taxes and smaller government with progressive ideas like abortion rights and marriage equality.
Lucky number four?
This will be the fourth straight presidential bid for Richard Duncan, a real estate investor and tavern owner from Aurora. With no television ads and a cheap campaign built exclusively on personal interactions and handing out fliers, Duncan went from 17 votes in 2004 to 12,502 in 2012.
His claim to fame is also the title of a short book he’s pushing on his low-tech campaign website: I Ranked 10th in the Nation in Total Presidential Votes in 2012 on a 5,000 Dollar Budget.
Stein and Duncan, who could not be reached for comment, are the only repeats among the 13 candidates who ran for president four years ago in Ohio.
Assuming their petitions are valid, other independent candidates this year include Darrell Castle, a member of the Constitution Party from Memphis, Tenn.; and Tampa Bay attorney Michael Steinberg.
Write-in candidates, who can collect votes but will not have their names on the ballot, include Michael Bickelmeyer, a Northeast Ohio Republican and inventor who’s proposed building a death ray that harnesses solar radiation to fight terrorism and create jobs; Ben Hartnell, a Michigan native who lives in Westerville and boasts advanced college degrees and, potentially, the longest beard in the White House since Benjamin Harrison; and Douglas Thomson of Cincinnati.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug.