On December 16, the Justice Party filed its letter with the California Secretary of State for “political body” status. A “political body” is a group that says it will try to qualify as a party. The Justice Party will try to persuade 103,008 Californians to fill out a voter registration card, listing that person as a registered member of the Justice Party.
The statutory deadline for this method for getting on the ballot is January 2, 2012. It is overwhelmingly likely that the California deadline is unconstitutional. There are no reported lawsuit decisions that uphold a mandatory deadline for a group to qualify to appear on the November ballot, with a party label, earlier than May of the election year. And the deadline is especially vulnerable in connection with a presidential election.
I know of no party that ever converted 100,000 people in a single state within a few months of coming into existence.
Those *radical* Republicans in 1854 ???
Every election is NEW and has ZERO to do with any prior event in the history of the Universe – except the number of actual voters in the election area involved at the last election.
Way too difficult for the SCOTUS robot party hacks to understand.
Smart–
July 8, 1967 was when the American Independent Party of California was founded. It needed over 67,000 members to register into its party by January 2, 1968, in order to get Governor George Wallace on the ballot as a Presidential candidate. That’s less than 5 months.
They got over 100,000 members.
There. Now you know of a party that did it :P. It takes money, press, hard work, and a little luck. The AIP accomplished it with a lot of money, hard-working volunteers, and a large number of rallies by Governor George Wallace himself.
In California, with respect to presidential elections, party affiliation means an “intent to affiliate with a party at the next (presidential) primary”. Under the California Constitution, a party that participates in presidential primary is entitled to have the winner of their primary appear on the general election ballot. See Article II, Section 5(d).
California should switch to the Top 2 Open Primary for presidential elections.
Richard:
How long did it take the Peace & Freedom Party to qualify for the ballot in California in the late 1960’s?
#5, according to Darcy Richardson’s book “A Nation Divided” about the 1968 presidential election, the Peace & Freedom Party only had 23,000 registrations by Christmas. But in the next 9 days leading up to the deadline, it got another 78,000, easily making the goal of 66,059 registrants.
Also Ross Perot’s Reform Party got all its registrations in just three weeks in September 1995. In 1995 the deadline was earlier because the primary was in March instead of June. The Reform Party drive started late because Perot hadn’t conceived of starting a party until just before the deadline.
#4, if your interpretation of the California Constitution were correct, then Hillary Clinton would have been on the November 2008 ballot for president in California, as she won the Democratic presidential primary in California.
#7 The California Constitution was amended in June 2010.
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