Summary: Lieberman is waging his November WATB/spoiler("spoiler" in the sense of harming the party) bid as a "petitioning candidate" for the Connecticut for Lieberman (CFL) party, which should imply that at some point between July 10th (when the paperwork for reserving that party name was filed) and November 6th, he'd probably have to be a registered member of CFL.
Did he become a member of that party before the primary, or did he do so since then, or is he planning to switch after the certfication of signatures for his petition goes through as expected?
Depending on the answers to those question, certain potential legal and copyright issues could arise, which maybe worth looking into.
1. As things stand, Lieberman is a "petitioning" candidate for the Connecticut for Lieberman (CFL) party (a "Minor Party", in technical legal terms, from what I understand). He filed the paperwork for registering his CFL party on July 10th. He is not a "petitioning Democrat" as he initially tried to pass off as and got busted (see also) and not an "Independent Democrat" a name which he is now using to siphon off Democratic and Independent votes. Of course, for all practical but informal purposes, he is the de facto Republican nominee in the race.) The petition signatures were filed on 8/9/06.
2. A legal question then is, wasn't he required by CT election law (Chap 153) to have been a registered member of CFL before signatures could be collected on his behalf?
3. If he was required to, and assuming he did register as a member of CFL, then, since he was presumably also a member of the CT Democratic party until at least the August 8th primary, was he registered as a member of two parties at the same time? If so, did Lieberman break some CT law in doing so?
4. Now suppose to the contrary that he was not required to be a registered member of the CFL party before the signature collection started. In this case, it should almost certainly be the case that he'd have to switch parties at some point before election day 11/7/06. Presumably when the secretary of state certifies as expected the validity of sufficient of signatures as a petitioning candidate for CFL.
5. In that case, once he switches affiliation, Lieberman will formally have defected from and ceased to be a member of the Democratic party, and hence the party could/should then issue a notice asking him to stop using the copyrighted terms "Democrat", "Democratic", etc,to describe his candidacy or pretend/imply that he is a continuing member of the party.
6. In a similar vein, the Independent Party of CT, which has its own candiate in this race, could ask Lieberman to stop using the term "Independent".
Here are some links for those interested in exploring these issues:
1. Connecticut election law
2. CT Democratic Party rules
3. CT Democratic Party homepage
4. CT SOS Election Administration
5. CT Major Party rules
6. CT SOS 2006 PRIMARY AND ELECTION INFORMATION