On October 18, leaders of the ballot-qualified Independence Party of South Carolina announced that the party is merging with the Forward Party (which is not on the ballot) and the South Carolina Independence Party will change its name to the Forward Party.

This makes the third state in which the Forward Party is ballot-qualified. The other two are Florida and Utah.

The South Carolina Independence Party was originally put on the ballot in 1996 and was named the Reform Party. It changed its name to Independence in 2004.

In 2004 it nominated Ralph Nader for president, and in 2016 it nominated Evan McMullin for president. Those are the only two elections since it ceased being the Reform Party in which it had presidential nominees.

South Carolina makes it very easy for qualified parties to remain qualified. They just need to run at least one nominee for some federal or state office every four years. The state’s policy of letting parties change their names has been helpful to new parties in the past. When the Natural Law Party decided to cease to exist, the South Carolina Natural Law Party kindly changed its name to the Green Party, so that the Green Party became qualified in South Carolina.

On Friday, October 20, the Connecticut Supreme Court will hear the dispute over the Independent Party involvement in the Danbury election for Mayor and other city office. That election is November 7, 2023. See this story.

The Independent Party held two nominating conventions recently to nominate candidates for Danbury office. One convention nominated the Republican slate, and the other meeting nominated the Democratic slate. Connecticut permits fusion.

This news story says that former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, a national co-chair of No Labels, says he doesn’t intend to register as a member of the No Labels Party, even though it is now a choice on the North Carolina voter registration form. Instead he is still a registered Republican.

The story quotes him as saying that No Labels doesn’t encourage people to register into the party. However, in California, No Labels is using the registration method to get on the ballot, and it probably will do so soon in Delaware as well.

The reporter who wrote the story makes a factual error. The story says that North Carolina won’t provide a primary in 2024 for No Labels because No Labels doesn’t want one. Actually North Carolina doesn’t provide a primary for any newly-qualifying party. New parties in North Carolina nominate by convention, no matter what their wishes are. Thanks to Richard Grayson for the link.