On February 15, the Tennessee Libertarian Party asked the Secretary of State to rule that it is a qualified party, based on the Gary Johnson vote last year. Johnson polled 70,397 votes in Tennessee last November. The law says a group needs to poll 5% of the last gubernatorial vote, for any statewide race, to become or retain status as a qualified party. The last gubernatorial election in Tennessee was in November 2014, and 5% of the 2014 gubernatorial vote is 67,687.

The law says a party must have an officer in every county, and the party waited to send the letter until it had achieved that goal. Tennessee has 95 counties.

Section 2-1-104 of the Tennessee election law defines “party” to be “a political party at least one of whose candidates for an office to be elected by voters of the entire state received a number of votes equal to at least 5% of the total number of votes cast for gubernatorial candidates in the most recent election of governor” or a group that submits a petition of 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote.

Tennessee hasn’t had any qualified parties, other than the Republican and Democratic Parties, since George Wallace’s American Party lost its status in November 1972. Not counting Tennessee, there are only eight states with no ballot-qualified parties other than the Democrats and Republicans.