On December 19, Orange County, California finished checking the Americans Elect petition signatures from that county and reported the results to the California Secretary of State. There are now more than enough valid signatures on the petition, even though not all counties have yet reported their results.

Americans Elect is only the second party in California to qualify using the obscure 10% petition procedure. The only other group that ever did that petition in California was Henry Wallace’s Independent Progressive Party in 1947-1948. The 10% petition procedure has existed in California since 1937. Generally, new parties choose the easier 1% registration method, which has existed in the law since 1929.

The only other state in which a new party ever obtained a spot on the ballot by completing a 10% petition is Nevada, where the law required a petition of 10% of the last vote for U.S. House between the years 1893 and 1917. Parties that met the Nevada 10% at least once are the Socialist Party in 1904 and the Prohibition Party in 1916. After the Prohibition Party did it in 1916, the legislature listened to the party’s complaint about how difficult it had been, and lowered the requirement to 3%.