North Carolina’s third parties lose recognition. Voters get a new affiliation
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Four third parties lost official status in North Carolina due to low vote totals.
- 34,000 affiliated voters will now be reclassified as unaffiliated by the state.
- The State Board of Elections retained Green Party status despite sub-2% vote share.
Last year, attack ads, legal battles and heated legislative hearings erupted from efforts to get new third parties recognized in North Carolina and get their independent presidential candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, on the ballot.
The parties won that effort, but lost the election — by a lot.
Their poor performance means that the Constitution, Justice for All, No Labels and We the People parties will no longer be recognized in North Carolina. And starting Tuesday, the 34,000 voters who registered with them will have their party designation switched to unaffiliated.
These parties all failed to receive at least 2% of the total vote in the presidential or gubernatorial election in November, making them ineligible to retain their party status.
The left-wing Green Party, however, which has about 4,000 registered voters, will keep its official recognition despite its candidates not reaching the 2% threshold.
That decision came from the Republican-led State Board of Elections, which said Thursday that the Greens could still be recognized because they had a presidential candidate — Jill Stein — on the ballot in at least 35 states.
The board’s two Democrats objected, noting that Stein was listed under different party affiliations on some states’ ballots.
It’s one of the first decisions from the board since Republicans took control last month. Like many votes about third-party access in North Carolina, it was party-line.
West and Kennedy battled over ballot access
When Kennedy and West first attempted to get on the ballot last year, Democrats — who then held a majority on the State Board of Elections — opposed their efforts.
Their votes drew swift criticism from Republicans and independents, who accused them of trying to boost Democrats’ chances in the election by eliminating third-party challengers who might siphon off liberal votes.
Eventually, the board reversed course and voted to allow Kennedy on the ballot, but denied West.
Things got complicated, however, when Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed President Donald Trump.
After spending months trying to get on the ballot, Kennedy then began an eleventh-hour legal battle to get his name off the state’s ballot.
Republicans who had previously sided with Kennedy’s efforts to achieve ballot access then vociferously supported his cause to remove himself from the ballot.
In a 4-3 decision, the Republican-dominated state Supreme Court sided with Kennedy, ordering the state to reprint millions of ballots that had already been produced with his name. The decision also delayed the start of absentee voting by over two weeks.
Trump later appointed Kennedy as secretary of health and human services.
As for West, he ended up on the state’s ballot after his supporters successfully sued the board over its vote to deny him. He got 0.2% of the vote.
The political parties that supported these campaigns — “We the People” for Kennedy and “Justice for All” for West — garnered about 2,300 and 1,000 registrants, respectively.
Those voters, alongside the 800 Constitution Party registrants and 30,000 No Labels registrants, will now become unaffiliated — joining the most popular party designation in the state.
The only official parties now recognized in North Carolina are Republicans, Democrats, Greens and Libertarians. But new parties can still achieve ballot access if they receive signatures from about 14,000 voters.
