The West Virginia Independent Party will hold a state convention on April 10. See the party’s website here. The Independent Party of West Virginia is the only state party in the nation in which there is still no resolution as to whether it is ballot-qualified or not. The Secretary of State still hasn’t said whether the party is recognized. It did poll over 1% of the gubernatorial vote in November 2020, so it should be qualified. However the votes were write-in votes. Thanks to Jeff Becker for this news.
1% is pretty impressive for a state wide write in. Give them the ballot.
It was actually almost 2% and our candidate, Marshall Wilson, outperformed the Green nominee by over 33%. 15,120 out of 768,804 (1.93%) versus only 11,309 for Danny Lutz of the Mountain Party.
As a Green myself, I also say the WV Independent Party has definitely earned their qualified party status, especially given that their candidate was a write-in and still managed to exceed the required threshold. But it’s going to be an uphill battle trying to convince the Republican/Democrat controlled state government to follow the spirit and letter of the law here; they look for any excuse to attack and make it more difficult for opposition parties. Best of luck to the Independent Party.
ALL third party folks and independents for partisan offices are now ***enemies of the state***.
see the movie with Gene Hackman.
The more parties on the ballot the better.