Mark Kimble, a member of the Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission, has this op-ed in opposition to letting any party have the word “independent” in its name.
The term “independent voter” does not appear in Arizona law or on official Arizona forms. The voter registration form does not mention “independent”. It asks people if they wish to register in any of these four categories: Republican, Democratic, other, or “No party/unaffiliated”. Also, the voter registration statistics published on the Secretary of State’s website do not refer to “independent voters”. The data shows the number of registered voters in each qualified political party, and then a category called “other.”
The election law does not mention “independent candidates.” Article 5 is titled “Nomination other than by primary”, and the text begins with these words: “Any qualified elector who is not a registered member of a political party that is recognized pursuant to this title may be nominated as a candidate for public office otherwise than by primary elecion or by party committee pursuant to this section.”
Nor does the law dictate that a candidate nominated otherwise than by primary automatically has “independent” as his or her party label. The section of the law that describes the ballot, 16-502, says “The names of all candidates nominated under 16-341 shall be placed in a single column below that of the registered parties. Next to the name of each candidate shall be printed the designation not to exceed three words in length.” In other words, someone who qualifies for the November ballot by petition is free to choose any short partisan label that doesn’t mimic the name of a qualified party; the candidate is not required to use “independent”. An example of a partisan label used in Arizona in the recent past is “Natural Law”, when some supporters of the Natural Law Party qualified to run for Arizona legislature before the Natural Law Party finally gained qualified status in Arizona in 2000.
A party might want to hold itself out as an organization for people who don’t like any of the older, established parties. Many of these people might want to be part of an organization with that stance on politics. That is why there have been many one-state parties that not only used the word “independent” in their name; their entire name was simply “Independent Party.” Parties called the “Independent Party” have been ballot-qualified in the past, or currently, in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Oregon, South Carolina, and Utah. Also Massachusetts had a ballot-qualified party named the “Independent Voters Party” 1991-1992.
The term “independent voter” was not used in the United States until political scientists started using the term in the late 1950’s.
In 1906-1910 there was a nationally-organized party named the “Independence Party”, supported by William Randolph Hearst. Thus, the practice of using a word strongly connected to the word “independent” is far older than using the term “independent voter”.
Independent and independent voter are concepts moast people understand as nonpartisan regardless of what laws say in any particular state. Parties which call themselves independent are disingenuous, but they’re smart. They exploit the confusion of voters between themselves and nonpartisan. That’s why they always get much higher voter registration percentages than other minor parties, and I would guess have an easier time gathering ballot access signatures too.
You haven’t cited any evidence that the people who register into parties with “independent” in the party name are confused. Maybe they know that they are joining a party that represents people like themselves. I do agree that parties with “independent” in their name do have high rates of registered voters. But maybe the reason is that those parties appeal to lots of people.
BAN *independent* ???
Next – BAN *democratic* / *republican* / *green* etc ???
Since the AIP is the state branch of the Forward Party, why didn’t the call themselves the Forward Party?
Technically, the Arizona Independent Party is not the Arizona state affiliate of the Forward Party. The two parties are associated in a friendly way but that is all.
Richard Winger,
There is plenty of evidence. It’s been discussed on your site’s comments many times. Just because I didn’t cite it does not mean it doesn’t exist.
I’ll go ahead and cite some. Hopefully we won’t have to go through this every time the subject comes up? You must have seen some of these past discussions here. Why ask me to cite evidence you already saw previously, if you implied that you’re asking me, or imply I have no such evidence just because I didn’t take time to mention it earlier today?
1. The various parties named independent, independence, or having those words as part of their name have very different ideologies and activity levels, yet still consistently get a lot more voter registrations with their party vis a vis other minor parties in the same states. Some of those other minor parties are much more active in terms of running candidates, raising money, media interviews and coverage, appearing in events for the general public, holding public meetings, generating their own media content, being active on social media, etc.
2. I’ve seen various news reports, some of which you covered here, that various people who registered with parties named independent or with independent as part of their names did so by mistake, and some that mentioned random polling that very few of their registrants were actually familiar with the party and its stances and supported it.
3. I’ve seen comments on other posts here and elsewhere from different people who registered a lot of voters, especially but not only in California, in conjunction with circulation of initiatives or minor party ballot access petitions and or on paid voter registration drives for Republican and minor parties, that said they all found the same thing.
4. Their voter registration rates went up quicker after the introduction of “motor voter” and mail in voter registrations and or online voter registration ln various states, as opposed to the previously widespread practice of having to go to a voter registration office.
Elsa,
In addition to what Mr. Winger said, they wouldn’t do as well in terms of voter registration if they called themselves the forward party. I seem to recall reading that in Arizona there’s some kind of financial incentive for keeping voter registration percentage above a certain level. It might also help them in other ways I haven’t thought of. Or maybe they just think or hope that it will.
Forward Party is communist.
Ron, are there any communists hiding under your bed? How often do you check?
Stanley, the Socialist Labor Party was on many state ballots 1892 through 1976. The Socialist Party was on the ballot in virtually all states in its heyday and was active in elections 1898 through 1958. The Socialist Workers Party started getting on ballots in 1940 and is still getting on the ballot in some states. Do you think having 3 parties with the word “socialist” confused people? Would you have prohibited more than one party from using the same word in its name?
Also between 1973 and 2000 there were two nationally-organized parties stemming from the George Wallace campaign, the American Party and the American Independent Party. Do you think this caused confusion? Would you have supported a law saying only one party can have a word like “American” in its name?
In 1896 there was a nationally-organized party called in some states the Gold Democratic Party, and in other states it was called the National Democratic Party. Would you have supported a law making it impossible for that party to use that name?
Won’t the court in Arizona decide this? Why bother arguing about it now? Isn’t it going to be decided any day now to get the ballots, etc. ready for the primary?
Richard Winger: the question of parties with similar names is a separate question from parties whose names intentionally mislead voters into lending superficial support in the form of voter registrations and perhaps ballot access signatures because they are mistaken for nonpartisan.
Also, I’m not sure how you jumped to the conclusion that I favor any laws at all about it. I said they are disingenuous but smart. If I wanted to start a minor party, I might take the same approach as to the name. Indeed, that’s what we did with the George Wallace American Independent Party. But I’m currently not interested in starting or joining a minor party, given that Trump is significantly better than his Democrat opposition (I like to call them demon rats, it’s more accurate).
The right wing flank of the libertarians is also relatively good, and the Constitution party in theory, but not in reality.
If the Republicans return to being led by the likes of the Romney’s, McCain’s, Bushes, Doles, etc, before I die, I might support a minor party again, but I don’t think that will happen.
More over, I support much more radical changes to the system which would render all such questions moot. But we can discuss those at other times.
@RW,
The statute for the Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission does use the term “independent” in defining members. That was probably what the folks establishing the commission wrote in their initiative.
Mark Kimble was appointed by a Democrat, and previously had been on the staff of Democrat congressmen. The law says no more than two members of the five-member commission can be of the same party, so it is quite possible that the “independents” on the commission were based on their political beliefs, since they are appointed by partisan officials.
I remember back when the Arizona redistricting litigation was going on. Legislative leaders picked two Republicans and two Democrats, who then appointed a chair from a list submitted by judges. One of the nominees was said to be to the left of Che Guevera, and another had a framed autographed picture of Nancy Pelosi. They picked the least objectionable. She would invit the map drawer up to her studio to see engravings of congressional district maps. She was also making deals with the two Democrats. The two Republicans finally voted to finalize the map to prevent further changes.
Sounds like typical demon rat tricks.
I saw that the court case is not going to start until March. That means that the primary might be under the old name. Also, do the current petitions circulating say No Labels or AZ Independent party?
https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2026/02/02/arizona-independent-party-chairman-pushes-favored-candidate-asks-rival-to-drop-out/
The left wing nonsense in America has gone way too far.