Ballot access are rules and procedures regulating the right to candidacy, the conditions under which a candidate, political party, or ballot measure is entitled to appear on voters' ballots in elections in the United States. The jurisprudence of the right to candidacy and right to create a political party are less clear than voting rights in the United States. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has established in multiple cases that the federal constitution does not recognize a fundamental right to candidacy, and that state governments have a legitimate government interest in blocking "frivolous or fraudulent candidacies". As election processes are decentralized by Article I, Section 4, of the United States Constitution, ballot access laws are established and enforced by the states. As a result, ballot access processes may vary from one state to another. State access requirements for candidates generally pertain to personal qualities of a candidate, such as: minimum age, residency, and citizenship. Additionally, many states require prospective candidates to collect a specified number of qualified voters' signatures on petitions of support and mandate the payment of filing fees before granting access; ballot measures are similarly regulated. Each state also regulates how political parties qualify for automatic ballot access, and how those minor parties that do not can. Fundamental to democracy, topics related to ballot access are the subject of considerable debate in the United States.
The Oklahoma Libertarian Party is the state affiliate of the Libertarian Party in Oklahoma. It has been active in state politics since the 1970s, but due to Oklahoma's ballot access requirements the party has been an officially recognized party during only portions of the last twenty-five years. In 2016, The Oklahoma Libertarian Party regained ballot access. The state party has secured ballot access through at least 2024.
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), or Proposal 2, was a ballot initiative in the U.S. state of Michigan that passed into Michigan Constitutional law by a 58% to 42% margin on November 7, 2006, according to results officially certified by the Michigan Secretary of State. By Michigan law, the Proposal became law on December 22, 2006. MCRI was a citizen initiative aimed at banning consideration of race, color, sex, or religion in admission to colleges, jobs, and other publicly funded institutions – effectively prohibiting some affirmative action by public institutions based on those factors. The Proposal's constitutionality was challenged in federal court, but its constitutionality was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Libertarian Party of Texas is the state affiliate of the Libertarian Party in Texas.
Leon Drolet is a Michigan Republican politician and Anti-tax activist elected Macomb County Commissioner. He is a political activist known for his conservative fiscal views, which have caused criticism from politicians from both sides, including Candace Miller, L. Brooks Patterson and Mark Hackel. From 2001 to 2006, Drolet served in the Michigan House of Representatives. Drolet also served as a Macomb County, Michigan county commissioner from 1999 to 2000 and from 2006 to 2008. Drolet was active in the Southeast Michigan Tea Party Movement.
The Virginia State Board of Elections (SBE) was created in 1946 as a nonpolitical agency responsible for ensuring uniformity, fairness, accuracy and purity in all elections in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The SBE promotes the proper administration of election laws, campaign finance disclosure compliance, and voter registration processes in the state by promulgating rules, regulations, issuing instructions, and providing information to local electoral boards and general registrars. In addition, the SBE maintains a centralized database of statewide voter registration and election related data.
The Arizona Libertarian Party (AZLP) is the Arizona affiliate of the national Libertarian Party (LP) and has been active since its foundation on October 7, 1972.
Florida Amendment 2 is an amendment made to the Constitution of Florida in 2008. It added Article I, Section 27 to the constitution, which defines marriage as a union only between one man and one woman, and thus bans the creation of similar unions, such as civil unions or same-sex marriage.
Like most U.S. states, North Carolina is politically dominated by the Democratic and Republican political parties. North Carolina has 14 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and two seats in the U.S. Senate. North Carolina has voted for the Republican candidate in all but one presidential election since 1980; the one exception was in 2008, when a plurality of North Carolinians voted for Barack Obama. However, since that election, the state has remained closely contested with Republicans winning by no more than four points and obtaining a majority of the vote only in 2012. This stands in contrast to the post-Civil War era, as the state was a strongly Democratic Solid South state from 1880 to 1964, only voting Republican in 1928.
Nader v. Brewer, 531 F.3d 1028 is a 2008 decision by the Ninth Circuit ruling that certain Arizona voting regulations were unconstitutional under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Orly Taitz is an Israeli-American political conspiracy theorist and political candidate. A dentist, lawyer, and former real estate agent, Taitz was a figure in the "birther" movement, which promoted the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen eligible to serve as president of the United States. Taitz also promotes other conspiracy theories both related and unrelated to Obama. Taitz has initiated lawsuits on behalf of the "birther" movement; all were dismissed by the courts, and on one occasion Taitz was ordered to pay $20,000 as a sanction for misconduct in filing frivolous claims. Taitz has unsuccessfully run in statewide elections in California three times.
Free the Vote North Carolina is a North Carolina-focused Political Action Committee with the primary goal of lobbying for ballot access reform, to reduce burden on political third parties and unaffiliated candidates. The group seeks to educate North Carolinians about ballot access in their state, and equip voters with the knowledge of where candidates stand on voting right. They also advocate for the reformation of the State's candidate nomination system, and the system of primary elections.
The Libertarian Party of Virginia (LPVA) is the Virginia affiliate of the Libertarian Party. The party was originally founded in 1974 and was dissolved by the State Central Committee on September 11, 2022. Subsequently, the Virginia Libertarians quickly recreated the Libertarian Party of Virginia and received the recognition of the Libertarian National Committee. Some of the disaffected former Libertarians went on to create a new party, the Liberty Party – a party affiliated with the Association of Liberty State Parties.
The North Carolina Green Party is a political party in the state of North Carolina, and the NC affiliate of the Green Party of the United States. It has officially qualified for ballot access as of 27 March 2018, until 2020 statewide election. Since 2006, it has worked in collaboration with other organizations seeking to reform state election laws.
Numerous lawsuits and ballot challenges, based on conspiracy theories related to Barack Obama's eligibility for the United States presidency, were filed following his first election in 2008 and over the course of his two terms as president. These actions sought to have Obama disqualified from running for, or being confirmed for, the Presidency of the United States, to declare his actions in office to be null and void, or to compel him to release additional documentation related to his U.S. citizenship.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Tennessee since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015. Governor Bill Haslam quickly announced that the state would abide by the court's decision, and same-sex couples began to marry in Tennessee. Previously, Tennessee had banned same-sex marriage both by statute and its State Constitution.
Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The 5–4 ruling requires all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the Insular Areas to perform and recognize the marriages of same-sex couples on the same terms and conditions as the marriages of opposite-sex couples, with all the accompanying rights and responsibilities. Prior to Obergefell, same-sex marriage had already been established by statute, court ruling, or voter initiative in thirty-six states, the District of Columbia, and Guam.
The Montana Green Party is a state-level political party affiliated with the Green Party of the United States. It formed in 2001–2002 following Ralph Nader's run for president in 2000 as the Green Party nominee.
Before Election Day of the 2020 United States presidential election, lawsuits related to the voting process were filed in various states. Many of these lawsuits were related to measures taken by state legislatures and election officials in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In direct response to election changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 United States presidential election in Georgia; the Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign launched numerous civil lawsuits contesting the election processes of Georgia. All of these were either dismissed or dropped.
