The Working Class Party recently submitted approximately 50,000 signatures, to qualify for the Michigan ballot. The requirement is 31,519 signatures, due July 21. See the party’s web page here. Thanks to John Anthony La Pietra for this news.
The Working Class Party recently submitted approximately 50,000 signatures, to qualify for the Michigan ballot. The requirement is 31,519 signatures, due July 21. See the party’s web page here. Thanks to John Anthony La Pietra for this news.
Do they intend to have a presidential nominee?
I feel like if all of these smaller parties on the left teamed up, they could actually gain some political power.
who backed this? you dont get 50,000 signatures without infrastructure or money.
That’s somewhat unclear. The “Working Class Fight” campaign, which started in 2014, was initiated by a group Spark, a (presumably) very small Trotskyist organization. They were behind a similar initiative in 1988 in Michigan (called “Workers Against Concessions”). I’m inclined to agree that it would be difficult for Spark to pull this off on their own, though I’m sure they have members in areas outside of Michigan that could have been brought into to help this campaign (assuming Michigan petitioning laws allow for that)
even a more established left party like the ISO would have major challenges getting 50,000 signatures. it will be interesting to see how this evolves
They seem to share a street address with the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights, FWIW.
Kevin–I’ve been saying that for years, and they still haven’t done that. It’s like they let the small point in their platforms get in the way.
Kevin–“small point” should read “small print”.
Yes, Michigan allows out-of-state circulators.
The Party For Socialism and Liberation seems to be forming coalitions with other small far left parties in attempt to get better ballot access. The liberty union party has already endorsed their candidate and it looks like the peace and freedom party is going to cross endorse their candidate as well. It still looks doubtful that they will break access to 270 delegates though, so even if the lawsuit against the debate rules is successful I doubt the Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate would qualify. If each of these small socialist/far left parties would band together and pool their resources behind one candidate, i imagine they could achieve 270 ballot access, but instead they each tend to run their own candidates in only a handful of states and never have a meaningful impact on the race in any regard.
If Gloria La Riva got the nominations of the Peace and Freedom Party, Working Class Party and the Oregon Progressive Party, as well as matching their 2012 ballot access, they could get to 224.
Add the Independent Greens in Virginia. They could also add Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Those states would bring her total up to 286.
How many seconds until the Donkey/Elephant gerrymander monarchs / oligarchs SMASH all third parties and independents OFF the ballots ???
Will NOT take much for Civil WAR II to happen – one of the 2016 D/E MONSTERS shoots off its reptile brain mouth — and things automatically happen.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
thank you demo rep as always, you’ve contributed meaningful input to the conversation.
In fact, their submission includes a letter saying that Baltimore, Maryland is a sort of “home rule city” that serves as its own county — to explain why there is no separate mention of the home county of three circulators from there. (Michigan now allows out-of-state circulators, but they have to agree to jurisdiction and service of process.)
So the due date was July 21, when did they get to start? Even if they did bring in a bunch of Trots, 50,000 signatures is a lot of signatures. It’s interesting the WCP doesn’t use the word socialism or any of the usual Leninist rhetoric.
Watch the Democrats try to keep them off the Michigan ballot.
Folks should wake up a bit about history.
Stuff now has been developing over a LONG TIME —
just like the stuff in 1773-1776 (since 1607) and 1859-1861 (since 1776).
I am proud to have been one of those 50,000 signatures (outside of a Detroit City FC Match). Michigan will now have 7 political parties on the ballot.
We will have to be careful now, however, as more parties qualify the old parties may look to re-examine the very reasonable vote threshold necessary to remain on the ballot. (Any candidate receiving votes equal to 1% of the total votes that the WINNING candidate for secretary of state had (usually this means about 0.45% of the vote in any state-wide race, which has lead to the Natural Law Party, who’s national office closed its doors in 2002, still having automatic ballot access in 2016, and a small push to get them to nominate Vermin Supreme for President).
The last New Party in Michigan that was able to successfully collect the signatures necessary was the so-called “fake” tea party, believed to have been funded by the Michigan Democratic Party. They were blocked from the ballot because their statement of organization said “The Tea Party” and the petitions said “Tea Party”
Democrats will not be able to block it. The Secretary of State is a Republican, as are all other statewide elected officials. So I am sure they will be happy to put them on the ballot.