Reform, Peace & Freedom Parties Fail to Retain a Place on Ballot

Two of California’s eight political parties, the 31-year-old Peace & Freedom Party and Ross Perot’s 4-year-old Reform Party, failed to gain enough votes in November to retain their places on future California ballots.

The Reform Party has enough registered voters to requalify for the 2000 elections. But the Peace & Freedom Party, which has 72,969 registered voters, must register more than 13,000 voters by October to retain its ballot status, Secretary of State Bill Jones said Friday.

To retain ballot status, a political party must have at least one candidate for statewide office receive at least 2% of the vote, a level that both the Reform and the Peace & Freedom parties barely missed in November.

To requalify, a party must file a formal declaration of intent and register a number of voters equal to 1% of the votes cast in the last race for governor. Jones said the Reform Party already exceeds that threshold of 86,176 registered voters by more than 2,500.

The Democratic and Republican parties and four other minor parties, the Libertarian, American Independent, Green and Natural Law parties, all had statewide candidates who received more than 2% of the vote.

The state conducts primaries only for parties with ballot status, and their primary winners automatically win spots on the general election ballot.