On June 10, the Forward Party asked the California Secretary of State to tally how many people register into it. New parties in California generally get on the ballot by taking this step, and then persuading about 75,000 people to register into the party.
The Forward Party had not previously taken this step in California, because it considered itself aligned with the Common Sense Party, and the Common Sense Party was doing its own registration drive. But the Common Sense Party registration drive stalled out before it had obtained even half of the needed registrations.