CNA Staff, Sep 3, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
U.S. presidential candidates who aren’t aligned with the Democratic or Republican parties have historically faced difficulty gaining traction among voters — and part of that battle is getting on the ballot at all. Every state has different ballot access requirements, creating a confusing, time-consuming, and often expensive patchwork for third-party candidates to navigate.
It’s a battle currently being waged by the American Solidarity Party (ASP), a relatively new national party that bases its platform largely on principles found in Catholic social teaching.
As of the beginning of September, the ASP’s presidential candidate, Peter Sonski, and his running mate, Lauren Onak — both pro-life Catholics — have managed to qualify to appear on voters’ ballots in five states: Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Hawaii, and Ohio.
Amar Patel, a former vice presidential candidate for the ASP, told CNA in late August that efforts to get on the ballot in Mississippi, Alaska, and Tennessee are quite likely to succeed as well, though their appearance on those ballots isn’t 100% confirmed yet.
The ASP, which was founded in 2011 as the Christian Democracy Party USA, remains small but is garnering interest among Catholics and others — as an alternative to the prevailing Democratic and Republican parties but also as a means of putting principles that serve the common good, like care for the poor and support for the family, into action politically.
For the 2016 election, only Colorado listed the ASP officially on the ballot. In 2020, the party’s previous presidential candidate, evangelical Christian Brian Carroll, ultimately appeared on eight state ballots and was a certified write-in candidate for more than 30 additional states. He got about 42,000 votes nationwide, raising awareness for the party, which says it has “doubled in size” since then.
Sonski, the ASP’s 2024 candidate, previously told CNA his ambition in 2024 was to appear on roughly 16 state ballots as well as be an option as a write-in everywhere else. (Nine states have no filing requirements for write-in candidates, while a further 10 states don’t allow write-ins at all. In every other state, there is a filing process of some kind to certify write-in candidates — otherwise, a write-in vote will not count.)
Local volunteers in dozens of other states are putting in serious hours trying to gather enough signatures and unravel the red tape necessary to get Sonski on the ballot — with varying degrees of success.
To get on the ballot in Missouri, for instance, the ASP would have had to collect 10,000 confirmed signatures from registered voters — in reality, far more than 10,000 due to the likelihood of some being disqualified.
Vince Coiro, the ASP’s party chair for Missouri, said it wasn’t feasible to try to collect that many signatures in the time frame allotted without the help of paid signature gatherers — which can cost about $8-$10 a signature, putting it out of the Missouri ASP’s reach.
It was disappointing for Coiro, who said members of the ASP in Missouri had committed to pushing for ballot access almost two years ago at a statewide meeting but ultimately had to recognize that the effort was not worth it.
“In the world that we live in, we think of the quantity of 10,000 as not being that much … Likes on a Facebook post or views on a video,” Coiro told CNA. But when it comes to actually going out and collecting those signatures, “it’s a lot more daunting,” he said.
Still, despite that setback, Coiro said he has seen “tangible growth” in membership, involvement, and interest in the ASP in Missouri during the four years he has been involved with the party in the state. In 2020, 664 votes went to the ASP in Missouri, making that their “number to beat this go-around.”
Coiro said he hopes to continue growing the party’s base through local elections and believes that building interest at the local level will make it easier to achieve ballot access in the future. The ASP was at least able to obtain write-in status in Missouri for the 2020 election, and it is in the process of doing the same for 2024.
“If you encourage folks to vote their values and put their faith over their politics, as opposed to their politics over their faith, it’s going to benefit society and it’s going to benefit themselves, too,” Coiro said.
State ASP chapters elsewhere have had to contend with even stricter requirements for third parties seeking ballot access. In California, for example, minor party candidates have to collect 75,000 signatures — 219,000 if they want to run as an independent.
Illinois’ write-in requirements are stringent too, said Patel, the former ASP vice presidential candidate. Candidates must file with each county individually where they want their votes to be counted, so the ASP was forced to file paperwork in each of the 20 most populous counties in the state.
Jack Ternan, chair of the Texas Solidarity Party, the Texas affiliate of the ASP, told CNA that while they were able to get Sonski certified as a write-in candidate statewide, the requirements to actually get on the ballot proved insurmountable.
“The [requirements] for getting on the ballot as a newer minor party or independent candidate for a statewide office like president are extremely high in Texas,” Ternan said.
“You have to collect 113,151 signatures from registered voters who did not vote in a primary for a major party, and the time period for collection and submission was March 5 through May 13, 2024. The small time frame and high number of signatures requires paid signature gatherers, and we could not afford to make an attempt.”
Like Coiro, Ternan said he has seen engagement with and interest in the party increase in his state since 2020. In 2020, the ASP candidate garnered 3,207 votes in Texas, a number Ternan said he thinks they will surpass this time around.
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This article demonstrates why the real adversary is the two-party system– which, by the way, is not mentioned in the Constitution at all. What sustains the two-party system is this labyrinthe of state and local election laws that make getting on the ballot almost impossible in most cases, and why we usually wind up with Frick vs. Frack elections that make little difference in the long run when all is said and done. If all that isn’t enough, local elections boards are generally comprised of Republicans and Democrats to the exclusion of anyone else– by law. Voters should bear in mind that a vote for either major party candidate is in essence a vote for this failed two-party system. We have to begin to dismantle this system that favors major parties– and especially incumbents– as soon as possible.