The American Delta Party is now a ballot-qualified party in Delaware, but it attained this status too late to place nominees on the November 2016 ballot. A party is qualified in Delaware if it has at least 654 registered members. The American Delta Party has 854, so probably it will have nominees on the 2018 ballot if it is still active in 2018. See the state’s October 1, 2016 registration tally here.
The American Delta Party was created by Rocky De La Fuente. The party obtained these registered members before the August 20 deadline for new parties to become qualified. But the state refused to process approximately half of those new registrants immediately, because they were signed by voters who were switching parties. Delaware won’t let people switch parties during the three months before any primary, but does process such applications after the primary is over.
The minor parties that were already on the ballot have gained registration in the last two months at a high rate. Green Party registration since August 1 is up 24.2%; Libertarian is up 13.5%; Independent Party is up 9.1%. Thanks to Brady Olson for notifying me that the new Delaware registration data was available.
I see they tried to coordinate the letters with the party R-Republican, D-Democrat, L-Libertarian, how’d they get “G = N PARTISAN H = GREEN”?
These abbreviations go all the way back to 1978, when Delaware first started using registration data to determine which parties are on the ballot. Before 1978 Delaware didn’t bother to tally how many people registered into unqualified parties.
Way back in 1978, there was no Green Party, so it is not surprising “G” was assigned to something different.
The only place that I could find a list of parties other than in registration reports, is on the online registration form, where there is a pull down menu with the parties listed (in alphabetical order, though “The Blue Enigma Party” is alphabetized under ‘T’.
During 2016 a number of parties have seen large increases in registration:
American +66%
Non Partisan +25%
Green +22%
Libertarian +20%
Conservative +21%
Independent of Delaware 20%
Liberal 15%
It appears that the American party is advantaged by being listed first, and there is an advantage to not having “Party” as part of the name on the form (the Green and Libertarian have Party, so it may overcome the disadvantage of being an actual party).
The alpha codes were used in a listing of candidates for the 2008 election. So it was Obama(D), McCain(R), Baldwin(Q), McKinney(H), Nader(W), Barr(L), Calero(Z)
There were also non-presidential candidates for the (Y) and (J) parties.
The listing for 2016 uses the actual party names.
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It would be more accurate to say that election officials followed state law with regard to changing party affiliations before the primary. FAQ on the Election Division web sites note the distinction between changing party affiliation (any time except blackout period before primaries) and registration (anytime)