Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at an occasion in Los Angeles on March 30.
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Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at an occasion in Los Angeles on March 30.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Running for president is not straightforward whenever you aren’t a part of one of many main political parties.
While Democrats and Republicans do not have to petition a state to seem on a ballot, independent and lots of third-party candidates do.
Running as an independent candidate might be particularly difficult due to excessive signature necessities — typically on quick timelines. And some states even restrict which voters candidates can get signatures from.
For instance, an independent candidate looking for a spot on Texas’ 2024 ballot has about two months to collect 113,151 signatures of registered voters “who did not vote in the presidential primary of either party,” according to state election officials.
There is a workaround to these sorts of guidelines, although: A candidate can start their own political occasion and run as a member of that occasion.
That’s as a result of states reminiscent of Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas make it considerably simpler to get on the ballot as a minor-party candidate, in contrast with operating as an independent candidate.
As a consequence, presidential candidates like anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and progressive scholar Cornel West have determined to create their own political parties — the We the People occasion and the Justice for All Party, respectively — to get on the ballot in some states.
This month, the Kennedy marketing campaign announced it had gathered sufficient signatures to put his We the People occasion on North Carolina’s ballot this yr.
In North Carolina, campaigns solely want to collect 10,000 signatures of occasion members to get a presidential candidate’s title on the ballot. To run as an independent candidate in 2024, although, campaigns want to collect greater than 80,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot.
West initially deliberate to run as a member of the Green Party. Running as a member of the long-established Green Party would have made the duty of getting on state ballots throughout the U.S. a lot simpler. But West in the end determined not to seek the party’s nomination. (His marketing campaign says he has up to now gotten on ballots in three states utilizing different minor parties’ access.)
Independent presidential candidate Cornel West, seen right here in 2020, created his own Justice for All Party to get on the ballot in some states.
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Richard Winger, who publishes a month-to-month publication known as Ballot Access News, mentioned it is “irrational” that some states “make it much harder for an independent candidate to get on the ballot than for a new party.”
“And the reason that’s irrational is the whole point of ballot access restrictions is to keep the ballot from being too crowded,” Winger mentioned. “And an independent candidate doesn’t affect the ballot much because it’s just one guy or woman. But a new party could have a big impact on the ballot because the new party might run candidates for every single partisan office.”
The objective of minor parties
Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance research and the director of the Center for Effective Public Management on the Brookings Institution, mentioned it is sensible why independent candidates would use this workaround to get on the ballot.
But, Kamarck mentioned, it is “sort of an abuse of the law.”
She mentioned political parties usually are not meant to be a mirrored image of 1 particular person’s marketing campaign or an empty automobile to get one particular person on a ballot.
“We want, in a democracy, political parties to be able to form and run candidates,” she mentioned. “So, you know, I see why the states have done this.
However, Kamarck said what Kennedy and others are doing is creating parties that are not really meant to operate like most political parties.
“The downside is, this is not actual. No greater than No Labels was actual,” she mentioned, referring to the centrist group that had obtained ballot access in plenty of states earlier than dropping its proposal to run a presidential ticket. “This is just not a mirrored image of a coherent group of individuals deciding to kind a celebration and run in numerous places of work.”
In distinction, Kamarck mentioned, the Green Party runs candidates up and down the ballot annually.
“They’ve run candidates for county commissioner. They’ve run candidates for Congress,” she mentioned. “In other words, they’ve consistently tried to participate in elections as parties do. This is sort of a scam that Kennedy is running, pretending all of a sudden that he’s a political party.”
The Kennedy marketing campaign did not reply to a request for remark.
Kamarck additionally mentioned that greater thresholds for independent candidates are a practicality. She mentioned the bounds are meant to hold state ballots from getting overcrowded with numerous independent candidates and minor parties.
“You can’t have ballots that have 13,000 people on them running for president,” she mentioned. “Can you imagine trying to vote, trying to find Joe Biden’s name or Donald Trump’s name in the list of 13,000 people?”
But Winger mentioned it is in the end not truthful for states to make it considerably more durable for independent candidates versus a minor occasion. So so long as states have these sorts of guidelines, he mentioned, candidates are going to strive to work round them.
“It’s just stupid for states to make it harder for an independent,” Winger mentioned. “So I don’t blame the candidates at all. They’re just reacting to reality.”