I can’t find a firm answer to a deadline by when any potential presidential candidates must toss their hat in the ring. There are inferences to the NH primary and Iowa caucus, but nothing clear. Surely, there is a deadline…right?
I haven’t found a list of the deadlines for ballot access to the 2012 Presidential Primaries, but a lot of states had deadlines in November in 2008. Florida was actually in October, but I don’t know what it is now.
Technically speaking, if none of the candidates had enough delegates for a first ballot win at the convention, the delegates could shift to anybody else, even someone who declared that day.
In practice, every convention since the modern primary system started has gone one ballot.
But that means that while there are deadlines for any particular primary, there is no overall national deadline that must be met.
I don’t know, but it must be within a few months of the election. The two parties don’t officially nominate someone until then, and at the convention the delegates can in theory end up nominating someone who never ran in a single primary.
AFAIK, there is no relationship in law between the party primary elections and the general election for president. Whether someone enters all or none of the primaries is not relevant to their eligibility for the presidential ballot.
California appears to have different sets of rules depending on the party.
To qualify to be on the ballot in the Democratic Presidential Primary, you have to have enough signatures on your nominating petition(s) at least 73 days in advance.
For the Republicans, it is 74 days.
In both cases, a candidate has until 21 days before the primary to file for eligibility to be a write-in candidate. (If I am reading the law correctly, there is no provision for a write-in for President in the general election in California.)
Were people like Ross Perot and Ralph Nader not on the California Presidential ballot?