Groups become qualified parties in Florida simply by writing a letter to the Secretary of State, listing their state officers. The Boston Tea Party, formed in 2006 by Libertarians who were unhappy with the shortened national platform, has just sent the needed letter to be ballot-qualified in Florida. Florida has approximately 25 qualified parties. Most of them never run any candidates. The Boston Tea Party expects to place its presidential and vice-presidential candidates on the Florida ballot this year, although it is not running for anything else in Florida.
That’s so cute.
Anyways, is this “party” going to be on any ballots that actually require some work?
Congrats, way to go!
The New American Independent Party will also soon be submitting the names of our state committee to the Florida Sec. of State.
Rob, there is a petition drive in Alabama; which requires 5,000 (valid) signatures.
PS
All States should have ballot access as easy as Colorado, Louisiana & Florida (for Presidential candidates).
While “sending a letter” may be sufficient, the BTP didn’t just stick it in the mail. The Florida party’s chair, John Wayne Smith of Leesburg, drove it to Tallahassee and personally handed it over to the Secretary of State’s office.
Smith, a long-time Libertarian Party activist who polled 16,000 votes in the 2006 race for governor of Florida, will be the BTP’s “favorite son” vice-presidential candidate in that state.
We plan to attempt ballot access in some states with higher bars, but this is our first time out and we didn’t really start moving toward running a ticket at all until about mid-May. Personally, I’d rather concentrate on running vigorous campaigns in a few “easy ballot access” states this year than spend all our time on ballot access at the expense of seeking votes in the states where we know we aan get on the ballot.
Running the strongest presidential campaign we can this year leaves us in better position to go after “hard state” ballot access two years from now.
I expect that Florida will be the centerpiece of the presidential campaign, as our presidential candidate, Charles Jay, lives there and as John Wayne Smith has at least some pre-existing name recognition. We also have a couple of particularly dedicated activists in the state who will go all-out to make things happen (one of them put up the $500 fee to put the BTP on the ballot in Colorado).
Regards,
Tom Knapp
How about having a million parties getting on the FL ballots — by sending juvenile letters to the FL regime election bureaucrats ???
Equal nominating petitions — to END the juvenile idiocy that makes a total joke of ballot access in some MORON States — like FL — with its infamous 2000 Prez election.
I thought that a candidate FIRST had to create a party (not just be an independent candidate)
in another state, THEN apply to be a party in FL.
Or am I old news?
I think Florida requires you to be on at least 1 other state ballot and this Boston Tea party is on Colorado , so they qualify in Florida
VETSparty/ Veterans Party USA was in another state first [Alabama? Georgia?] in 2003.
The question isn’t what state is next, the question is why did it take this long to get on the Florida ballot? It’s easy to be flippant, but this is such a joke how else can one view it? A low hurdle like “show organization” may work in a small state like Vermont, but it is abused in high-profile states like Colorado (18 candidates!) and Florida. Perhaps Mr. Knapp can tell us if the BTP would have focused its campaign on Florida if ballot access had required even a modest 1000 signatures? There is nothing about Florida that makes it fertile ground for the BTP other than ballot access. Welcome to the world of the Socialist Workers Party and the Prohibition Party.
The two-state rule has nothing to do with qualifying as a party in Florida. The two-state rule instead is relevant when a ballot-qualified party wants to place its presidential nominee on the ballot. Three-fourths of the qualified parties in Florida are not on the ballot in any other state, but they are still ballot-qualified in Florida. But if they want to nominate a presidential candidate, they must either submit approximately 100,000 valid signatures, or they must show that they are on the ballot in at least one other state and must have a national convention.
The MORONS in the FL regime apparently learned nothing from the 2000 Bush v. Gore chaos.
Since when does the INTERNAL politics of a State depend on what happens outside of the State ???
Equal nominating petitions — end the now extremely dangerous IDIOCY in some MORON States.
Will the 2009 Prez be elected due to getting under 45 percent of the votes in Florida in 2008 ???
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