It seems these days the answer is yes. Who doesn’t like a party? And Calpeek readers like a little politics with their party.
Last week’s Peeks included a story about the increase in the number of people registering with the American Independent Party. The same edition also talked about the decline in the number of voters declaring themselves “No Party Preference”. The number of NPPs had been increasing, but in the last few years, hyper-partisanship has encouraged people to register with a political party.
Now, the new trend may be to start one’s own party. Sounds like fun. And how hard can it be to start a party? If you’re a hostess with the mostess, all you need is a few thousand (tens, hundreds of thousand) friends and be able to comply with the confusing rules mostly explained on the Secretary of State’s website.
On Wednesday, the Secretary of State sent a notification that the American Moderate Party intends to qualify for the November 2024 General Election ballot. They join the Hogwash Party and the One Party. Two other parties attempting to qualify for the March 2024 Primary Election are the California Women’s Party and the Common Sense Party.
It should not surprise anyone who hangs out around the water cooler that qualifying a new political party is challenging. In a nutshell, organizers need to either get people to sign a petition or use voter registration forms.
Currently, the petition method requires organizers to collect 1,271,255 signatures (10% of 12,712,542 which is the number of votes cast at the November 2018 General Election). The other option is to get approximately 73,350 people to use voter registration forms and affiliate with the new party (.33% of the number of people registered to vote 154 days prior to the most recent Primary Election.)
The petition or voter registration method must be completed about 5 months prior to the election in which the organizers seek to qualify. So, we will know if One, Hogwash and/or American Moderate qualifies by July 5, 2024. California Women and Common Sense have until October 3, 2023.
Calpeek hopes all the parties qualify. We love a party.