The requirement for statewide elections, such as the U.S. Senate, is 10,000 signatures, including at least 400 from each of Virginia's 11 congressional districts.
[5] Now, according to Code of Virginia § 24.2-543, a petition to put a third-party or independent candidate on the ballot for U.S. President "shall be signed by at least 5,000 qualified voters and include signatures of at least 200 qualified voters from each congressional district.
[7] To obtain the signatures necessary to receive statewide ballot access in Virginia, it has been quoted to cost between $45,000 to $90,000.
[8] Should the LPVA meet the ten percent threshold, career journalist James Bacon noted: "Sparing the Libertarian Party the expense of petitioning to get its candidates on the ballot would allow it to husband its resources to help candidates campaign... That would be huge.
It was the first time a minor party had won a constitutional election law case in the Fourth Circuit since 1989 and 1988.
[16] On December 2, 2013, the petitions against the Fourth Circuit's ruling were denied by the Supreme Court, and so the Libertarian Party of Virginia won the case regarding state residency requirements for petition circulators.
[7][17] In July 2014, The Rutherford Institute supported the Libertarian Party of Virginia and alleged Virginia ballot laws favored "the election chances of Democrat and Republican candidates at the expense of Libertarian Party and independent candidates.
"[18] In Sarvis vs. Judd[19] a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, several Libertarian Party candidates and an independent (non-party) candidate for public office in the November 2014 general election.
Joining them as plaintiffs in their federal lawsuit were two Virginia voters, John Buckley and Shelley Tamres.
In the 2004 presidential election, the Libertarian nominee was Michael Badnarik, who received 0.4% of the vote in Virginia.
Wilbur N. Wood III appeared on the ballot in Virginia's 10th congressional district, receiving 0.9% of the vote.
[33] Bill Redpath was the party nominee for U.S. Senate, and he appeared on the ballot receiving 0.6% of the vote.
[34] In the 1st congressional district, Libertarian nominee Nathan Larson appeared on the ballot and received 1.5% of the vote.
(15,309 of those votes were from Bain, who received 9.2% in his district because there was no Democratic candidate running against Republican incumbent Bob Goodlatte.
In total, there were over 15,000 votes cast for Libertarian candidates running for the Virginia House of Delegates in 2013.
[43][44] On election day, Sarvis obtained 146,084 votes, or approximately 6.5% of the total vote cast, a number nearly three times the size of McAuliffe's victory margin over Cuccinelli and nearly five times better than Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson from the year before.
This would have been the first time any party other than the Democratic and Republican Parties ran a full slate for U.S. House in Virginia since 1916; however, Xavian Draper, Allen Knapp, Justin Upshaw, and Matthew Edwards did not submit enough valid signatures to qualify for a position on the ballot.
[66] In total, there were nearly 5,000 votes cast for Libertarian candidates running for the Virginia House of Delegates.
Libertarian presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen received 1.45% of the vote in Virginia.