Florida Presidential ballot access is based on whether FEC recognizes that party as a National Committee
From Ballot Access News:
For several years, Florida has had a law saying a ballot-qualified party can’t be on the ballot for President unless it is recognized by the Federal Election Commission as a national committee of a national political party, or unless the party submits a petition signed by 1% of the state’s voters. This year, that would be 119,316 signatures.
The purpose of the FEC’s recognition of national committees concerns campaign finance, not ballot access. Federal campaign laws allow individuals to contribute much more money to national committees of political parties than to other campaign committees. Therefore, the FEC has had to decide which national committees of nationally-organized political parties to recognize. However, nothing in the federal campaign laws define the term, so for 42 years the FEC has been deciding which applications for such status to grant. The FEC has never had any objective standards, but roughly speaking, it recognizes a national committee if the party in question has been on the ballot in several states for president and congress. But the rulings are not at all consistent.
In 1975, the FEC approved its first application for national committee status, other than for the Republican and Democratic Parties. In ruling 1975-129, it approved the Libertarian Party. Its presidential nominee had been on the ballot in two states in 1972, and the party had had a single candidate on the ballot for Congress in one state. In 1974 it had had candidates for Congress on the ballot in three states (the FEC won’t count party nominees unless the party name appears on the ballot).
Leave a Reply