Currently, in West Virginia, a qualified party is one that polled at least 1% for Governor in the last election. Delegate Pat McGeehan (R-Chester) has introduced HB 2215. It expands the definition, to a group that either has 5,000 registered voters, or which polled at least 1% for any statewide state office. In West Virginia, governor and all other statewide state offices are up in presidential years, so a group that met the vote test would have qualified status for the next four years. Thanks to Jeff Becker for this news.
Currently, the Libertarian and Green Parties are ballot-qualified. Although the Constitution Party has been on the ballot for Governor, it has never polled as much as 1% for that office.
Nice to see a good ballot access reform bill.
5,000 petition signatures or 5,000 registered voters seems like a good way to let a group gain ballot access. But not all states have you declare a party group, when you register.
Maryland allows a nascent party to blanket petition the party to be allowed to hold a nominating convention instead of requiring petitions from each individual candidate. MARYLAND §4–102:
https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/StatuteText?article=gel§ion=4-102&enactments=false
This makes a lot of sense since otherwise the petition form would be crowded/lots of extra papers and signatures and/or the party would effectively need to know the names of their statewide candidates far in advance to have the required time to collect the thousands of signatures required. In West Virginia, a party/candidates can begin petitioning immediately following the November general, so they’d have three and half years to collect the 10,000 valid signatures required with wich a method.
North Dakota lets you register by petition and gain ballot access for a slate of candidates. But, their rules for legislative races are insane.