The United Independent Party, which exists only in Massachusetts, is attempting to qualify for party status. See here for the party’s web page, which asks readers to change their voter registration to join the party. If it can persuade 1% of the registered voters to join the party, it will be a qualified party.
The group is running Evan Falchuk for Governor in 2014. He is vice-president of Best Doctors, Inc., a company that helps companies deal with health insurance and also helps individuals to obtain second opinions for health problem diagnoses. If the party is unable to qualify by registration, Falchuk can get on the November 2014 with the party label by submitting 10,000 valid signatures next year.
Ever since 1991, it has been theoretically possible for a group to attain party status by persuading 1% of the voters to register into the party, but no group has ever successfully used this method.
Richard:
Does Massachusetts limit the signature gatherinfg to a specific time-frame?
If not, can a party then take multiple years to get tits registration to 1 %, which currently is what?
A group’s Massachusetts registration drive, like any state’s procedure for a party to qualify by increasing its registration, can take as long as needed. Unlike petitions, registration drives are cumulative, and can start any time and keep going for years and years. A state isn’t going to erase a bunch of voter registrations just because the group didn’t make it.
Of course, a state might tell the group to re-file its list of officers, but that is not the same thing as erasing a lot of hard work registering voters.
The states that erase a party’s registrants (like Oklahoma and New Hampshire and Nebraska) are not states in which the group’s ballot status depends on how many registrants it has.