We're Having a Party!
Long ago in a galaxy far, far away when I was a mere child & they still counted the ballots by hand, my mom was a poll worker who always brought home a sample ballot after the presidential election. (This is the 60s for those of you who may be wondering). I remember those ballots being huge things because there were about 8-10 candidates for president from different parties. There were the usual rows for Democrat & Republican, then there were parties like the Socialist as well as an independent or 2. These always had (nominated by petition) under the party name. That was because of the rule in Iowa that to get on the ballot you either had to be a recognized party because you got at least a certain percentage of the vote in the last general election (governor or presidential) or you went the petition route. & except for 1970 when the American Independant Party was recognized because of Gov. George Wallace's 1968 run or in the 90s with the Reform Party only the Republicans & Democrats usually crossed the vote threshold to be recognized.
In recent years it seemed like at most there were about 4 or 5 parties on the Iowa ballot. There was the Republicans & Democrats, the Greens, a Socialist & maybe an independent. & I got to wondering what ever happenned to those good old days of all the parties showing up in Iowa. There seemed to be a wide variety in other states. So they are still out there.
I don't have an answer to the question of why not on the Iowa ballot. I can only guess that it is because there aren't enough supporters. But I thought it might be interesting to make a list of the parties that are out there. & some of them ARE WAY OUT there. The biggest surprize came from the list I found on Politics 1's website, there is still a Prohibition Party in existance. There were other surprizes also. There are some other parties I thought died out a long time ago also, but still exist. & there are also a few I knew existed, but would be very happy if they disappeared off the face of the Earth.
So here they are, all the political parties I could come up with, along with a link to their webpage if it exists (Quite clearly I CANNOT & DO NOT ENDORSE what some of these parties stand for. Groups like the Nazis & their ilk are very repugnant to me. They are included for informational purposes only. Our Constitution does protect their right of free speech so they do have the right to exist even if they are repugnant. As I said before I wish they did not exist.):
Republican (Grand Old Party)
Aloha Aina Party of Hawaii
American Independent (affiliated with the Constitution Party)
American Reform (Split from Reform)
American Socialist
Charter Party of Cincinnati, Ohio
Covenant Party (Northern Mariana Islands)
Independence Party of Minnesota (Split from Reform)
Independent Citizens Movement (US Virgin Islands)
Liberty Union Party of Vermont
Marijuana Reform Party
New Progressive Movement (Puerto Rico)
New York State Right to Life Party
Partido Nuevo Progresista de Puerto Rico (La Palma)
Populist Party of Maryland
Southern Independence
United Citizens
& you thought there weren't that many (about 90) in the USA, commonwealths & territories. This list rivals the list of political parties in Italia for numbers. As I said above there are several parties that I find repugnant because of what they stand for. But that is the price we pay for living in a free society. If we take away their rights then we risk loosing our freedoms. The best way to overcome the hate & evil they stand for is to present the truth about what is wrong with them.
(This list was compiled from info on Politics 1 Directory of Political Parties & the Wikipedia entry List of political parties in the United States)
posted by Al @ 12:09 AM
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