The Florida Secretary of State’s website now lists the Natural Law Party a a qualified party. The name of the party is “Florida Natural Law.” Most counties in Florida don’t print the full party name on the ballot. The Secretary of State abbreviation for the Natural Law Party is “Nat”. The No Labels Party abbreviation is “NLP.”
The state says the Reform Party has not filed to be re-recognized. It had been removed in 2023.
BAN has already covered the pending Missouri state court lawsuit in which the Republican Party seeks to bar a gubernatorial candidate from its August 2024 primary ballot. That case, Missouri Republican Party v Secretary of State, has a hearing May 9.
Another Missouri case, somewhat similar, was filed on March 19, 2024. The Vernon County Republican Committee is suing the county elections office to prevent four candidates from appearing on the primary ballot. They are running for county partisan office. The party wants them off the primary ballot because they refuse to attend a vetting meeting. Vernon County Republican Committee v Lee, circuit court, Vernon County, 24VE-cv-00185.
Recently the Missouri legislature passed a law letting voters indicate their political party on the voter registration form, but there are no consequences for whether a voter fills that out or not. The state doesn’t even tabulate how many people have affiliated with a party. That provision has no part in either of these lawsuits.
Following up on Richard Winger’s post yesterday about this bill, here is a commentary from the Illinois Policy Institute.
And, here is a link to my Chicago Tribune oped of July 10, 2023 on the ballot access barriers to third party and independent candidates in Illinois. All 118 Illinois House and 59 Illinois Senate seats were on the November 2022 ballot in Illinois. There were zero independent and zero third party candidates in all 177 of those elections.
On May 3, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker signed SB 2412, which eliminates the ability of qualified parties to nominate someone after the primary is over. The bill takes effect immediately.
The original bill had nothing to do with election law, but all of the contents of the original bill were erased on May 1. It passed the legislature in its new form on May 2 and was signed May 3. The bill appears to have been designed to block one particular Republican from being nominated in a legislative election this year.
There are many precedents that states cannot make ballot access more difficult in the middle of the qualification season, including one that was summarily affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, Hudler v Austin, in 1976.
ABC News has this story about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s attempts to win minor party nominations. The story is incorrect when it says that the Alliance Party is ballot-qualified in Minnesota and that the Reform Party is on the ballot in Florida.
Also the story would have been better if it had explained that previous independent presidential candidates have followed the same strategy. In 1924 Robert La Follette, an independent progressive presidential candidate, won the nomination of the Socialist Party and the Farmer-Labor Party, which helped him with ballot access. He would not have been on in California without the Socialist Party nomination.
In 1968, George Wallace depended on the ballot-qualified Conservative Party to place him on the Kansas ballot. In 1980, John Anderson used the Liberal Party to gain access in New York. Ralph Nader in his 2004 and 2008 independent runs, depended on many one-state qualified parties. Lenora Fulani, in her two runs in 1988 and 1992, did as well. Even Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 was the nominee of the Republican Parties of California and South Dakota. The only person who was on the ballot in all states, in the last 100 years, who didn’t depend on a nomination by a previously qualified party, was Ross Perot in 1992.
