in the United States.
One that people can actually declare themselves “registered” for?
The first thing you should do, ready29003, is scope out the competition. Go to Politics1 – www.politics1.com – a website dedicated to all aspects of politics in the United States. Click on the “political parties” tab. You will see a page listing all the main national Democratic and Republican organizations, followed by a list of all third parties currently active in the U.S., with capsule descriptions and website links. Almost all. For some reason they don’t list the North American Silly Party, the Monster Raving Looney Party, or the Barking Spider Resurgence Party. You can find these and more listed at:
D.C.'s Political Report – www.dcpoliticalreport.com/PartyLink.htm
Darkhorse 2000 – www.thelastcool.com/dh2k/html/facts-parties.html
3rd Party Central – www.3pc.net
Look over the lists. Is there a market niche for you to fill? What’s your ideology or your message, and is there already a party that stands for it? It would seem kind of pointless to start one more socialist party, or one more Christian-conservative party. Unless you’re just doing this for fun, in which case you don’t really need any kind of party organization. Many “third parties” appear to have no existence apart from a website.
As for “registering” for your new party: Most states allow voters to register under one of three, and only three, categories: “Democrat,” “Republican,” and “Independent.” This makes sense, in a way, as under the U.S. system the only reason to register as a voter in a particular party is to get the right to vote in that party’s primary elections; and, at present, only the Republicrats use primaries. Other parties are too small to need them.
But this varies from state to state. In some states, you can register under the name of a particular third party, pointless though it might be to distinguish such a registration from “Independent.” Check with your local election office. Or, again, try Politics1 and click on the “states” tab, which will take to you links with all the main public offices of any state in the Union, as well as all the political parties active in that state.
As for becoming a party that can legally apply for public funding from the Federal Elections Commission – well, no sense getting ahead of yourself.
Not necessarily. Minnesota law defines a “major political party” as one whose candidate received at least five percent of the votes cast in a statewide election and some votes in every county. Major-party status entitles the party to public funding and automatic listing on the ballot. Four parties qualify: the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party (the Minnesota version of regular Democrats, who merged in the late 1940s with their ideologically compatble competition the Farmer-Labor party), the Green party, the Independence party (whose predecessor, the Reform Party, nominated former Governor Ventura; not the same as “Independent”), and the Republican party. All four major parties hold nominating primaries.
Cite.
It varies from state to state.
In New York, you form a party by circulating petitions for your candidates. The rules are byzantine and nitpicky (one candidate around here was disqualified because he handed in his petitions a half hour earlier than was required).
If you get enough signatures, and if they aren’t challenged or invalidated (once, this happened because a candidate used a paper clip instead of a staple), you get a line on the November ballot.
Now, if you run a candidate for governor, your goal is to get 50,000 votes. Once you reach that threshold, you get a permanent line on the ballot for the next four years. IIRC, the permanent parties in NY are Republican, Democrat, Conservative, Independence, and Right to Life. The Liberal Party killed itself last election (with a candidate who quit the race) and dropped out; they may be back.
Your ideal goal is to finish first or second in the governor’s race. Then you get to appoint poll watchers. This nearly happened a few years back when Pierre Renfret’s Republican candidacy nearly finished behind the Conservative Party.
brianmelendez: Major news! That’s the first I’ve ever heard about third-party primaries in America! May it not be the last!
By the way, ready29003, if your plans include actually running candidates for office, and if you want some of them to have a prayer of getting elected, you have to face the fact that the U.S. election laws are designed to squeeze out third parties, in many obvious and not-so-obvious ways. I had a thread on the GD forum – I haven’t figured out how to embed intra-board links, so just search for it by title: “Should the U.S. adopt alternative, pro-multipartisan electoral systems?” And check out the Center for Voting and Democracy at www.fairvote.org .
sorry it has taken so long for me to read these responses.
Are the Democratic and Republican parties…corporations? They must be officially some sort of legal entity so they can accept donations and put money in a bank account.
So what are they?
I believe that the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee, the overall party organizations that accept the money, are non-profit corporations.
If you check the DNC website it says Copyright © 1995-2003 DNC Services Corporation
There are numerous types of non-profits designated in the law and I don’t know which type these fall into. You absolutely want a lawyer to steer you through the maze of election law. Start with the Federal Election Commission website to see what forms are necessary.
New York state takes the lead in ridiculous regualtions designed to make it all but impossible for a third party to put a candidate on the ballot. RealityChuck mentioned two examples above. In other cases, petitions have been dismissed because signers included their middle initial or used red ink instead of black. And local rules state that if a single signature is ruled invalid, the entire page of signatures that it’s on is invalid.
A sad commentary on the fate of third paries in the United States - over half the links on this site are dead.
Gee, BG, they might not be as rare as you think. Generally a state will hold a primary for any party which qualifies for “major party status” in a particular jurisdiction–be it state, county, or district. In Illinois, you achieve “major party status” by having any one of your candidates in the relevant jurisdiction receive at least 5% of the vote in the previous election. So the Greens and Libertarians will often be holding primaries, with automatic ballot status for the winner, in one Congressional district while having to petition to get their candidate on the ballot in the district next door. In recent years Illinois has conducted primaries for the Green, Libertarian, Illinois Solidarity, and Harold Washington Parties in at least part of the state. I don’t believe Illinois is atypical in this regard.
There are occasionally primaries for minor parties in New York – any of the parties with permanent spots on the ballot may have them. Around here, the Conservative party is likely to have primaries, but that’s because the local group is made up of police and firemen in the city of Schenectady, who use the ballot line to make sure their jobs are safe.