On August 1, the Colorado Secretary of State said the independent presidential petition for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has enough valid signatures.
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The number of signatures needed for someone running for president outside the major parties in 2024 is substantially more difficult than it had been in 2020. That is partly because legislatures increased the number of signatures, and partly because some states temporarily decreased their requirements in 2020 because of the covid health crisis.
Using the easier method in each state, the number nationwide in 2020 had been 568,689 signatures or registrants, and in 2024 it is 660,897.
The states that increased the presidential petition requirements were New York in 2020, and Arkansas, Colorado, and Iowa in 2021. Certain other states also increased requirements for office other than president.
Jurisdictions that temporarily eased the presidential petition requirements in 2020 due to covid were the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Virginia. Also New York increased the permanent requirement in 2020 to 45,000, but then lowered it only for 2020 to 30,000.
The calculation assumes that the easier method in California is the independent presidential petition, not the registration method that creates a new party. However, both methods are extremely burdensome, and it is a close call. In 2024 the independent petition is 219,403 signatures and the party registration method is approximately 75,000 party members. The exact requirement for the registration method won’t be known for several weeks, when the state issues a new Report of Registration.
Ross Perot in 1992 collected more signatures than any presidential candidate in history. He used the independent petition method in every state except in Oregon, even though the signature burden on him would have been lighter if he had formed new one-state parties in certain states. Also he did not accept the nomination of any pre-existing ballot-qualified party in 1992. Also, back in 1992, the ballot access laws for presidential candidates running outside the major parties were more severe than they are today.
On July 31, the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. held a press conference about ballot access, and asserted that he had collected over 1,000,000 signatures, a record. The claim that this is a record is not true, because of the Perot example. It is also that Lenora Fulani in 1988, John Anderson in 1980, and George Wallace in 1968 collected more than 1,000,000.
See this statement from the Kennedy campaign. Kennedy did not need to collect any signatures in California or Florida, because ballot-qualified parties that themselves didn’t need any signatures nominated him. Also he needed fewer signatures than Ross Perot needed in 1992, because of easier requirements now than in 1992, in Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wyoming.
Two petitions have been submitted in New Hampshire to place Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on the ballot. One has his label as “We the People” and the other is “Libertarian.”
New Hampshire has no name protection for unqualified parties, and in 2008 two separate presidential candidates appeared on the ballot, both with the label “Libertarian”, Bob Barr and George Phillies.
Assuming both Kennedy petitions are valid, he will be listed on the ballot as “We the People, Libertarian.” He would only be listed once. His campaign is not responsible for the petition with the Libertarian label. It seems that the Kennedy Libertarian petition was completed by individuals not formally connected with Kennedy, possibly for federal campaign finance purposes.
Chase Oliver has also completed his petition in New Hampshire. New Hampshire is one of only five states with a party column ballot format. The New Hampshire Secretary of State has a habit of squeezing Libertarians and independents into a single party column labelled “Libertarian and Other”, instead of giving separate columns.
The Missouri deadline for independent candidate petitions, and petitions to qualify a new party, was July 29. This year, only three statewide petitions were submitted: (1) the Better Party, which has no interest in the presidential race; (2) the Green Party; the independent Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. petition.
The first petition has already been found valid. The Secretary of State will soon check the validity of the other two. The Libertarian Party is already on the ballot because of its vote totals in 2022.
This will be the first year since 1994 that the Constitution Party is not on the ballot. It didn’t poll enough votes in either 2020 or 2022 to remain ballot-qualified, and it did not complete a petition this year.