This Los Angeles Times story about California’s redesigned voter registration form also discusses the American Independent Party. The article reveal that some California county election officials want the legislature to pass a law making it illegal for any party to have the word “Independent” in its name.
Tennessee has a law making it illegal for any party to have the word “independent” in its name, but that law was held unconstitutional by a U.S. District Court a few years ago as a violation of free speech. Later the Sixth Circuit reversed that on the grounds that none of the plaintiff political parties had standing to challenge that law, because neither of them had “independent” in their names. The plaintiff political parties in that case were the Green Party and the Constitution Party.
Wyoming also has the no “independent” word in political party name law.
Independent of MORON Party HACKS Party — NOW.
Govt robot party HACKS worried that *Independent* is much too close to that 4 July 1776 DOI item ???
OK, so would it be against the law to organize a “Not Dependent Party”?
The fundamental problems are
(1) That California has partisan registration.
(2) That California permits write-ins on their registration form, and has no systemic way to check those entries, or correct them, or even to permit a party to change its name.
It would be better to require only a modest number of registrants (50 or 100) to establish a party, but require evidence of organization: bylaws, election of party committees by registrants, biennial state convention, financial reporting, etc. If some voters wanted to form a new party, they would sign a petition saying that they were forming the party and submit that to the SOS. If there were enough signers, the party would be recognized and the registrations changed.
If a voter attempted to register with a non-existent party, they would be informed of the fact and given an opportunity to select a party, or be registered as nonpartisan or undeclared.
If a party failed to remain active (elect party committees, hold a biennial state convention, and pay their annual registration fee of $25) they would become dormant. A dormant party could reorganize by holding conventions attended by a quorum of their registrants.
If a party fell below the minimum number of registrants, they would be disbanded, and registrations would be changed (there might be a 6-month warning permitting a party to get its numbers up, followed by notices to individual registrants permitting them to change their registration.
This system would also let a party change its name if approved by a majority of its registrants, since the registrations could be changed.
Voters could register as nonpartisan or undeclared (instead of NPP or DTS).
Use of “Independent” or “Independent Democratic”, “Independent Green”, would be banned. Someone who was registered as “Independent” would be permitted to change. Parties such as “Reform” or “Natural Law” that have retained sufficient registrations would become dormant. The same would be true of other parties that have attempted to qualify and might still have 50 registrants (California National, California Pirate, Independent California, Open, Constitution, Veteran’s, Justice, We Like Women, La Raza Unida, Christian, Conservative, Humane, etc.
Eliminate partisan presidential nominates, and switch to Top 2 elections for individual electors by congressional district. An elector candidate could indicate a presidential candidate preference if authorized by the candidate.
Make the presidential primary advisory only. All candidates would appear on one ballot. Ballots would be marked by party of the registrant. Parties would be free to interpret results as they wish.
Make elections for party committees, all-mail elections in odd years. The state would send out ballots and provide collection. The parties would be responsible for counting the ballots, which let them use other forms of balloting. If a party preferred, the mailout could be an invitation to conventions.
NO primaries.
Nominating petitions with candidate chosen one word names — Aardvark to Zyzoz
PR and AppV