You want to be involved, but you don't know what to do? Here are some ideas inspired by Mark Selzer.

As a volunteer champion of liberty, you can get burned out and bored easily when asked to do a task that does not challenge you or fit your interests. This list is to find things for you to do as a volunteer, and let you know about some of the things that need to be done. This list can also be shown to other volunteers so they can find things that they would like to do, or a new thing to do when they no longer want to do what they are doing.

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Libertarian Party of Utah is pleased to announce that the Lieutenant Governor's Office has determined that the organizing committee's petition contained the required number of voters, and that the LPUtah is once again a registered political party in the State of Utah.

According to the Lieutenant Governor's Office, county clerks in the State of Utah have been notified that voters may now change their party affiliation to or register as a Libertarian.

SALT LAKE CITY – The Libertarian Party of Utah is asking for help from Utahns who desire liberty-friendly choices on their 2008 general election ballot.

Many Utahns may not know that the LPUtah lost is ballot status in the 2006 general election because no Libertarian candidate received more than two percent of the vote cast in all three congressional races – about 11,400 votes.

The LPUtah needs 2,000 petition signatures by registered voters to re-qualify as a registered political party.

Last month the LPUtah submitted 2,170 petition signatures to the State Elections Office, which deemed nearly one-third of the signatures invalid. The deadline to submit petition signatures to the State Elections Office is February 15, 2008.

SALT LAKE CITY – By a vote of its membership, the Libertarian Organizing Committee is encouraging Libertarians and liberty-minded Utahns to vote for Citizen’s State Referendum Number 1.

"On balance, voter approval of education scholarships through Referendum 1 will improve educational outcomes for children compelled to participate in taxpayer-funded, constitutionally-mandated government education systems in Utah," says Rob Latham, chairman of the Libertarian Organizing Committee.

But will Becker, Buhler surprise?

SALT LAKE CITY – With one month to go before the primary election, candidates Jenny Wilson and Keith Christensen are leading an online demonstration election for Mayor of Salt Lake City.

Using the same ranked choice voting method implemented in San Francisco’s municipal elections in 2005, voters can choose a majority winner in one election, not two.

Ranking choice voting permits citizens to vote for their favorite candidates in their order of preference, without worrying about electing their least favorite candidate.

"Human freedom is today threatened by regimented statism."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower, October 12, 1948

As Americans celebrate the Declaration of Independence of John Hancock et al in 1776 from King George III's Great Britain, and the Revolutionary War fought to replace British rule, it's worth exploring how liberty has been and can be achieved without resorting to the initiation of force.

Voluntaryists are members of the libertarian movement who seek to achieve a free society without resorting to electoral politics. Nonviolent resistance, perhaps most famously associated with Ghandi's ultimately successful bid to end British rule in India, involves many strategies libertarians can use to triumph over tyranny.

Given the substantial electoral barriers incumbent political parties have erected to protect their power and privilege, libertarians are rediscovering how to promote virtue through "social change."

"So long as libertarians withhold their consent from conservative politicians, those politicians can't win."

--Ryan Sager, columnist and blogger for the New York Post and RealClearPolitics.com

In the American political theory classic, Federalist 10, author James Madison proposed controls on the effects of factions:

If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote.
...
Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression.

Unfortunately, the bipartisan scheme of oppression most Americans live under today arose as the result of the single-member district plurality voting systems that underlie almost all elections in the United States, which has yielded two dominant political factions. Combined with the advent of "log rolling" -- a technique through which legislators poorly monitored by voters behave in ways that are costly to citizens -- the two-party system has managed to defeat the U.S. Constitution's checks and balances against "the interested combinations of the majority."

A modern example of the majoritarian erosion of constitutional barriers is the receipt of "significant income" from government programs by more than half of all Americans. In other words, the tax eaters -- both from the political left and political right -- outnumber the taxpayers.

How might those who champion the cause of liberty restore the free America envisioned by its founders; an American society as described in Federalist 51 "broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority"?

Single-digit turnouts common for student body elections in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY – The Libertarian Party of Utah announced that -- for the second straight year -- no applicant claimed the $1,000 prize offered for the general scholarship fund of any Utah college or university by this year's April 20, 2007 deadline.

The prize was part of the LPUtah's second annual Fair Representation Challenge. Rob Latham, the LPUtah's Chairman, will ask his party's executive committee to authorize the award next year.

"The processes used to elect members to the student body governments at Utah colleges and universities present a great opportunity for students to explore more competitive and representative electoral systems," says Latham. "I will continue to encourage that exploration."

Many student governments at American colleges and universities, such as the Graduate and Professional Student Senate at the University of Washington (DOC file, The Elections Meeting) and the Student Association at Rice University (PDF file, By-Law E: Elections, Article E-1, Section 2 (g)(ii) and Section 4), have adopted ranked-choice voting to foster broader student participation and representation in student government.

Last October, the LPUtah notified student body government representatives at each eligible Utah college and university of the Fair Representation Challege by email. Announcements were also sent to the student newspaper of each Utah institution accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

As in 2006, voter turnout for Utah college and university student body elections remained low in 2007.

• Only 1,079 of an estimated 60,000 students enrolled at Salt Lake Community College voted in this year's Student Life and Leadership elections, down from 1,100 last year.
  

SALT LAKE CITY – Utahns filing state income tax forms can express their displeasure with the two-party system in a way that few Americans can ... by making a tax-deductible donation to the Libertarian Party.

“Given that most registered voters choose not to affiliate with either incumbent political party, elected politicians forfeit any legitimate claim to the 'consent of the governed' or the 'will of the people' by excluding the voices of a significant number of Utahns with their ‘bipartisan’ schemes and rigged elections,” says Rob Latham, Chairman of the Libertarian Organizing Committee.

Latham encourages independent voters and taxpayers to return the disfavor to Utah’s political class by writing an “L” in section 3 of Form TC-40 (PDF file).

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats."
--H.L. Mencken

As the handiwork of the 2007 General Session of the State of Utah's Legislature comes online, Utahns have until April 29th to find the exits, or prepare for the next assault upon civil society by the political class.

One tool used by the members of civil society to protect against institutionalized aggression is the jury, an assembly of citizens selected randomly to resolve disputes.

Is it time for juries to make a comeback in the defense of individual liberty?

Random acts of liberty

The classic film "12 Angry Men" dramatizes how one juror can save the citizen accused from being wrongfully convicted.

And because election-rigging Republicans and Democrats continue to cheat all Americans out of more competitive and representative means to choose lawmakers, randomly-selected jurors are among the few individuals who can stop the enforcement of an unjust law.

The Fully Informed Jury Association is one organization working to raise awareness of a juror's powers.

But what if a juror is unaware of his or her power to evaluate the law?