Major and Minor Third Party 2020 Ballot Access
Libertarian Party
Following multiple success in the 2016 presidential election, in which Johnson received over 5% of the vote in nine states and helped many Libertarian candidates come over the minimum requirement for continued ballot access, and in 2018, where Larry Sharpe became the first Libertarian gubernatorial candidate to receive over 50,000 votes giving the New York Libertarian Party automatic ballot access for the first time and having multiple parties continue to meet the minimum voter registration requirement to keep ballot access, the Libertarian Party is already on the ballot in over thirty states and only needed to gain ballot access in sixteen states.
Green Party
In 2016 the Green Party broke its previous record of appearing on forty four state ballots set by Ralph Nader in 2000 and fell one electoral vote of tying. As of now the Green Party is on the ballot in half of states and could possibly be on the ballot in all fifty states and D.C. for the first time in 2020.
Prohibition Party
"In 2016, the Prohibition Party's candidate, Jim Hedges was on ballot in Colorado, Arkansas, and Mississippi. From what I understand, getting on ballot in Mississippi involved registering a state level Prohibition Party organization in the state and submitting a petition of 1,000 signatures. Arkansas involved filling a petition of 1,000 signatures and paying a registration fee, and Colorado involved paying a registration fee. Other state efforts involved some combination of gathering lists of elections, filling petition signatures, and paying fees. We came close to getting on ballot in Tennessee, Louisiana, Iowa, and New Jersey. A storm hit Louisiana around the time of the registration deadline, which prevented us from getting all our electors registered and thus couldn't complete the process to get on ballot. In Tennessee, two electors dropped out the last minute, preventing us from having enough electors to get on ballot.
In New Jersey, there was an issue with electors which wasn't discovered until after filling, and the New Jersey state government refused to allow it to be fixed after filing. In Iowa, we completed the stuff needed to get on ballot and mailed in the paperwork, but someone in the post system didn't recognize the place the paperwork was being sent to, and instead of looking it up, decided to send the paperwork back to us, and by the time it got back, it was too late to get it sent in on time to get on ballot. In 2016, we worked to get write in access in whatever states we could. As for 2020, we had a national conference back in April. At the meeting, there was a list of states that we hoped to try to get on ballot on. Those included Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Colorado, Utah, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Jersey, and possibly some other states. Currently we're the early stages for preparing ballot access efforts. So it remains to be seen how many states were succeed in getting on ballot in 2020." - Jonathan Makeley
If the Prohibition Party is successful in all of the states it is targeting it will appear on the ballot in eleven states for a total of 104 electoral votes. That would be the party's best ballot access performance since 1952 when Stuart Hamblen appeared on the ballot of twenty states worth a total of 253 electoral votes, and won 73,412 votes, 67,795 more votes than their 2016 results when they appeared on three state ballots.
Solidarity Party
"The reason we got ballot access in Colorado and only Colorado in 2016 was our late start. We only nominated a presidential candidate in July. The deadline to get on the ballot in Colorado was August 10. We were able to raise $1000 and have 9 Colorado voters fill out forms to be presidential electors. There were really only 2 very active party members but they were able to recruit the electors and get in their paperwork in person at the state election offices. The other state where ballot access is easiest is Louisiana. That requires $500 and 8 presidential electors, but there needs to be 1 elector from each congressional district, with a deadline in mid-August. We came close but couldn't get an elector from one of the districts. We also thought we had some chance of ballot access in Florida, but couldn't get paperwork to be registered as a party figured out in time. Older minor third parties also had trouble with Florida in 2016 because of tougher interpretations of procedures in state government. For write-in access there are about 10 states which don't allow write-in votes at all. It was too late to register in Indiana and North Carolina.
In a few other states we didn't understand the procedure correctly (Illinois), didn't have the people set up to be electors (Tennessee, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Missouri), or had paperwork rejected on technicalities (Arizona), or people were allowed to write us in but our votes were never tallied and were just included in the count of write-in votes for all write-in candidates; (Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and others). We got registered and had write-in votes counted and tallied in the following states, which require a variety of different procedures; California, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin. We also eventually had write-in votes counted and tallied in Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire, which don't require paperwork. Since 2016 we have run several candidates for other offices and maintained state chapters around the country. We also decided that our presidential ticket will be chosen in September 2019, which will be done by an online vote of the membership. Colorado and Louisiana will definitely be possible for ballot access, and we hope for a good outcome with Florida, and we will get our party registered in Mississippi. The rest of states require a petition drive, and we hope to pursue some combination of volunteer petition drive and paid petition drive in states that require 5000 signatures or less. We'll reevaluate and see if we have a different goal in a few months. Tennessee and New Jersey require less than 1000 signatures so those are priorities. Rhode Island and Utah, which require 1000 signatures, are among states which look to have good groups of volunteers already. We know that petitioning can start in Arkansas, which requires 1000 signatures. That will require paid petitioners because we have no state chapter yet. If anyone knows of good paid petitioners, please send leads to admin@solidarity-party.org" - Skylar Covich
If the Solidarity Party is successful it will see a great rise from its ballot access in one state worth nine electoral votes to possibly eight states worth eight times that amount.
Life & Liberty Party
Thank you for reaching out to the Life And Liberty Party. We were able to contract with a professional signature gatherer to obtain the required signatures for the Life And Liberty Party 2020 POTUS ballot line. Now, we must build our state organization and name six electors. We have some time to do that, per statute. Also, our nominating convention won’t be until next Spring/Summer.
The Life And Liberty Party will first work with state coalition partners that don’t have ballot access, such as Alaska, Colorado and South Dakota.
I have announced my campaign for POTUS 2020. I have been invited to appear on the California American Independent Party primary. I have also been invited to appear in the Constitution Party of Idaho primary ballot line. There are several other states my campaign is looking at, as we develop our ballot access strategy. Ultimately, we hope to be on the ballot line in enough states to reach the theoretical threshold of victory, at 270 Electoral votes.
We have been working with several political parties, entities and activists across the country to explore ways to expand the coalition. We realize that creating a new national party is a daunting task. However, we are building upon the years of experience and networking of many dedicated Liberty Activists. This gives us our strength, and our advantage. We are not newbies at this stuff.
Bread & Roses Party
The Bread & Roses Party was recently founded by Jerome Segal in 2018 and is current recognized and on the ballot in the state of Maryland. The Party hopes to get on the ballot in all the states that are not “swing states.”
This was originally posted on August 2, 2019