NEWS RELEASE
COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE
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The Elections Division of the Secretary of State’s Office announced today that the proponents of the proposed No Labels Colorado political party have submitted a sufficient number of valid signatures to qualify as a minor political party in Colorado. Therefore, as of this date, the No Labels Colorado Party is recognized as a minor political party in Colorado.
To be deemed sufficient under Colorado law, a petition to qualify as a minor political party must contain at least 10,000 valid signatures of registered Colorado electors.
Petition Verification Summary:
- Total number of qualified signatures submitted: 18,046
- Total number of signatures rejected as invalid: 6,225
- Total number of signatures accepted as valid: 11,821
In accordance with the law, the Secretary of State’s office approved the petition format for the No Labels Party on Nov. 4, 2022. No Labels submitted signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office on Jan. 4, 2023. Statute requires the Secretary of State’s Office to review every line of submitted signatures within 21 days in order to declare sufficiency or insufficiency.
The full Statement of Sufficiency (PDF) is available here.
A minor political party is any political party other than a major political party. To obtain minor political party status, a minor political party must satisfy the conditions set forth in Article 4, of Title 1, of the Colorado Revised Statutes.
To form a minor political party, an organization must file a constitution or set of by-laws with the Secretary of State in accordance with Section 1-4-1301 of the Colorado Revised Statutes and petition to qualify as a minor political party.
The organization must submit a petition format to the Secretary of State before collecting signatures. The petition must:
- Contain the minor political party's name and a heading stating that the petition signer’s desire that the organization be qualified as a minor party;
- The minor political party's name may be up to three words in addition to the word "party," but may NOT include any part of the name of an existing party.
- Be approved by the Secretary of State before being circulated;
Once the petition format has been approved by the Secretary of State’s office, the proponents may begin to circulate it for signatures. They must obtain signatures from at least 10,000 registered electors in Colorado and submit the signatures to the Secretary of State no later than the second Friday in January of the election year for which the minor political party seeks to qualify.
Upon submission, the Election Division of the Secretary of State’s Office examines the petition to verify the number and validity of the collected signatures.
If the organization collects the sufficient number of signatures, the minor political party may then nominate candidates for offices to be filled at a general election in the same manner as major political parties as opposed to having candidates petition on to the ballot.
A minor political party maintains its status if:
- At least one of the minor political party's candidates for statewide office has received at least 1% of the total votes cast in any statewide office in either of the last two general elections; or
- 1,000 or more registered electors are affiliated with the minor political party prior to July 1 in either of the last two general elections for which the minor political party seeks to nominate candidates.
The other minor parties in Colorado are American Constitution Party, Approval Voting Party, Green Party of Colorado, the Libertarian Party of Colorado, and the Unity Party of Colorado. A full listing of political parties in Colorado is available here.
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