Judge Saves Libertarian Ballot Access After One-Day Deadline Miss

The fluorescent lights in the Denver district courtroom hum with a low, electric buzz. On one side of the aisle sits Nicholas Sarwark, the Libertarian Party’s lawyer; on the other, representatives from the Secretary of State’s Office. Between them sits Judge Adam J. Espinosa, who has just handed the party a lifeline after a bureaucratic near-miss that threatened to erase their ballot access entirely.

The ruling, issued Friday, allows Sean Vadney to appear on the November 3 ballot as the Libertarian candidate for secretary of state. It’s a narrow victory, decided on technicalities that most voters won’t even notice unless they scrutinize the fine print of election law. But for the party, it means their roughly 33,000 active members can actually cast a vote for the candidate they nominated.

The saga began in late August, when Alex Astley, an electrical engineer from Holyoke and a recent convert to the Libertarian Party, dropped out of the race. He exited on Aug. 26, which is 69 days before the election. Election rules are rigid: minor party candidates must withdraw no later than 70 days before the vote to be replaced. Astley missed that window by a single day.

That one-day gap became the center of a legal battle. Another rule gives minor parties until 64 days before the election to request a replacement candidate. The Libertarian Party met that second deadline, asking on Monday to put Vadney on the ballot. The Secretary of State’s Office denied the request, pointing to Astley’s missed 70-day deadline. Both sides asked Judge Espinosa to decide who was right.

Espinosa ruled that the party had "substantially complied" with election rules. He noted that adding Vadney now would not prevent the Secretary of State’s Office from preparing the ballot, which must be finalized by Friday. More importantly, he argued that barring Vadney would prevent eligible electors from having ballot access, a core intent of the law. Espinosa cited previous cases that establish a liberal interpretation of election rules, favoring voters’ rights over procedural strictness.

Sarwark described the state’s approach as "the tie goes to the voter," borrowing a phrase from baseball. The ruling effectively splits the difference: Astley missed his deadline, but the party met its own, and the voters get to choose.

The timing of Astley’s withdrawal has fueled speculation within the party. Some members suspect he intended to drop out all along to help the candidacy of James Wiley, a former Libertarian running as a Republican. Astley, who became a Libertarian last year after being an unaffiliated voter, told the Colorado Sun he started thinking seriously about dropping out in mid-to-late August. He said he knew there was a deadline to drop out and have his party replace him, but didn’t fully consider the implications. He called the timing "incidental," citing his day job and a failure to generate enough support among Libertarians.

Astley’s campaign motto was "Astley is never gonna give you up!" It was a reference to the 1980s hit by Rick Astley. But some party members suspect he Rickrolled them with his decision to exit the race when he did. A Rickroll is a form of online bait-and-switch, where a link that looks serious turns out to be the music video for "Never Gonna Give You Up." The irony is not lost on folks in the party, who stand there long enough and start to wonder if the whole campaign was a setup.

The part everyone skips past is the bureaucratic machinery that usually grinds these disputes to a halt. Here, it didn’t. The judge looked at the spirit of the law — the right to vote — and let it override the letter of a missed deadline. And that matters because, without this ruling, 33,000 people in the state would have had no Libertarian option on their ballot for a statewide office.

Vadney is now the candidate. The ballot is being finalized. The Rickroll, if it was one at all, ends here.