In California, a group that wants to qualify as a political body can do that, by persuading approximately 60,000 persons to register into the group. A group using that method must tell the Secretary of State that it intends to qualify. Then, the Secretary of State tells the county election officials to keep track of the number of registrants in that group.

In March 2015, the Independent Party notified the California Secretary of State that it wishes to qualify. The Secretary of State rejected the filing, on the grounds that the name “Independent Party” is too similar to the American Independent Party, which has been on the ballot since 1968. The California law says “The designated name shall not be so similar to the name of an existing party so as to mislead the voters, and shall not conflict with that of any existing party or political body that has previously filed notice.”

However, recently the California Secretary of State accepted a filing from a different group that is the “Independent California Party”, and (as reported earlier) this year the Secretary of State accepted a filing from a group called the American Freedom Party.

The Independent Party has been trying to find an attorney to sue the Secretary of State for some time.

Republican Party rules say that on the first ballot, at the national convention’s vote for President, delegates must vote for the candidate they said they would vote for when they were elected. But, according to this article at FrontloadingHQ, if a delegate disobeys, his or her vote still counts.

On December 14, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted told the press that Donald Trump can’t qualify as an independent presidential candidate in Ohio (should he want to do that), because Ohio, starting in 1981, defined “Independent candidate” to be “any candidate who does not consider himself affiliated with a political party, and who has his name certified on the ballot at a general election through the filing of a statement of candidacy and nominating petition as prescribed by section 3513.257 of the Revised Code.” Sometime between 1996 and 2002 it was slightly amended, so now it says, “who claims not to be affiliated with a political party”.

That law was passed in 1981. Yet in 1984, 1988, and 1992, Ohio let independent presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche on the ballot as an independent, even though all three elections LaRouche had run in the Ohio Democratic presidential primary and in the Democratic presidential primaries of many other states. Furthermore, ever since 1979, LaRouche has consistently told the world that he is a Democrat. Hundreds of members of his organization have run in Democratic primaries for public office and also party office. Two individuals were even elected as delegates to the Democratic National Convention in 1996, pledged to support LaRouche for the Democratic presidential nomination. However, the Democratic National Committee then passed a resolution to prevent them from being seated. LaRouche sued but the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia said the Democratic Party was permitted to do that.

The Ohio law has been upheld, but not in reference to any presidential candidate. The reason LaRouche was permitted to run in Ohio in 1984, 1988, and 1992 is partly because the true candidates in November are the candidates for presidential elector, and there was no revealed evidence that the LaRouche candidates for presidential electors had publicly affiliated themselves with the Democratic Party.

Jon Husted conspicuously did not say anything about whether Trump could be the nominee of a new party. A new party needs 30,560 signatures due July 6, 2016.