Unity08 is not yet a political party, and it may never become one. However, already it has inspired an independent candidate for Congress this year to use “Unity” as his ballot label. Harry Welty is on the ballot in Minnesota’s 8th congressional district this year as an independent candidate, and is ballot label is “Unity”. He says he was inspired by Unity08 to choose that label. Welty is the only opponent of the Democratic and Republican nominees in the 8th district race. He also ran as an independent for the same office in 1992 and polled over 22,000 votes, placing 3rd out of 4 candidates.

The South Carolina Working Families Party recently completed its petition (to qualify as a party) successfully. However, the State Election Commission said that notwithstanding that it is now a qualified party, it is too late for the party to run any candidates in this year’s election. This ruling flies in the face of a federal court decision from 1996, won by the Natural Law Party of South Carolina over the same issue. The Working Families Party expects to file a lawsuit soon. Assuming the party wins the lawsuit, it will probably not have any of its own members running, but instead will most likely cross-endorse some major party nominees (Democrats are more likely to be cross-endorsed than Republicans).

On April 21, 2006, the 6th circuit had ruled 2-1 that Ohio could no longer use punchcard ballots, since having punchcards in some counties and not other counties would violate Bush v Gore, which mandated equal treatment for all voters (punchcard ballots are more likely to fail to record an accurate vote, than other types of ballots). On July 21, the 6th circuit voted to rehear the case. This time all full-time judges will participate in the oral argument.