Attacks on opposing candidates are commonplace in modern politics, but the mudslinging on TV and radio can also go beyond rhetorical flourishes attacking another candidate’s bona fides or character and result in established political parties working to keep longshot challengers off the ballot.

In August 2023, Connecticut Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, coauthored an op-ed in the CT Post that called an attempt by No Labels to obtain 50-state ballot access for a third-party presidential candidate in the 2024 election a “danger to American democracy.”

No Labels is a political organization founded around 2010 with a goal of promoting bipartisanship and centrism in government. It’s looking to gain third-party status by running a “unity” candidate in 2024.

Connecticut’s leading Senate Democrats are not the only ones to use such rhetoric to classify the aims of No Labels. Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, called the group “perilous to our democracy” at a breakfast organized by Third Way, a centrist-Democratic group that has been hostile to No Labels.

Among the charges leveled against No Labels by Pelosi, Looney, Duff, and numerous others in state-level Democratic parties around the country are that the group really stands for extremist positions that will benefit its rich donors, which it does not disclose; that it is not truly a third-party representing independents in the electorate, a group Looney and Duff purport to prove does not exist in their op-ed; and that a No Labels presidential candidate would pull voters from President Joe Biden’s anticipated rematch against former president Donald Trump.

But the objections prominent Democrats have to No Labels’ attempts to place a candidate for president on the ballot across the country have at times departed from protected speech condemning the organization’s aims. In Arizona, for example, the state Democratic Party attempted to prevent No Labels from obtaining ballot access by suing over alleged flaws in its paperwork.

While the attempt was not successful, it does raise the question: just how far can candidates and political parties, especially major parties with institutional advantages over third-party candidates because of their ballot status, go to keep potential opponents from competing for votes?

Institutional Challenges: Paths to Ballot Access for Independents

States are given wide powers to control their election processes by the U.S. Constitution. Part of that power involves allowing states to make determinations about who is and who isn’t eligible to run for and hold various elected offices.

For example, whether former president Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on the 2024 ballot because of his actions on January 6, 2021, will be decided on a state-by-state basis rather than at the federal level. 

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies anyone who has sworn an oath to support the Constitution—as all presidents are required to do—and then engaged in insurrection against it from holding office. Whether Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, constitute insurrection is a matter of debate. 

In 2024, states will either choose to disqualify Trump or let him remain on the ballot. In Connecticut, Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas has received requests to review Trump’s eligibility but said Trump will remain on the ballot unless a court determines that his name should be removed.

But election officials aren’t the only ones able to make determinations about who appears on the ballot. The way state election laws are written frequently creates institutional challenges to obtaining ballot access, creating a two-tier system that makes getting your name on a ballot more difficult if you happen to identify as something other than a Democrat or Republican.

This is the case in Connecticut, where there is a legal distinction between major and minor parties and the processes they must go through to obtain statewide ballot access. Connecticut currently recognizes two major parties, Democrat and Republican, and four minor parties, Green, Independent, Libertarian, and Working Families. Those legal distinctions also affect everything from party nominations and endorsements of candidates to the timing of campaigns, and even the amount of money candidates can receive from the state’s public campaign finance system. 

Unlike many other states, Connecticut does have a path for establishing state-wide enrollment privileges for minor parties, but it requires a candidate first petition their way onto the ballot, fill out a separate form with a party name designation of no more than three words and twenty-five letters, and win at least one percent of votes for the office they are seeking.

And petitioning to get on the ballot is no easy feat. Whereas the nominees of major and minor parties recognized by the state receive automatic ballot access, independent candidates need to petition to gain ballot access and collect signatures from eligible voters totaling one percent of total votes cast for president in the state in 2022 or 7,500, whichever is less. In 2020, a total of 1,823,857 votes were cast for president in Connecticut. As one percent of that number exceeds 18,000 votes, that means any independent candidates running for president in the 2024 election will need to collect 7,500 ballot signatures and submit them to either the clerk of the town in which the signers live or to the secretary of state no later than 4:00 pm 90 days prior to the general election. 

In Colorado, where No Labels has already obtained ballot access, minor parties can become recognized through the state prior to the election and through means that don’t require a named candidate. 

Groups with aspirations of becoming political parties in Colorado can become qualified political organizations (QPOs) by filing proof of organization with the secretary of state, meeting once a year, and certifying at least one candidate for the general election every two years. QPOs can qualify for minor party status in the state by receiving a certain percentage of votes cast in elections for statewide office. But it can also obtain party recognition if 1,000 registered voters designate affiliation with the party by July 1 of an election year or by collecting the signatures of 10,000 registered voters in the state. Those must be submitted to the secretary of state by the second Friday in January of the year of the election. 

No Labels, which is currently on the 2024 ballot in 12 states, used this latter method to obtain minor party status in Colorado. As a result, voters in the state will be able to register with No Labels as their party affiliation ahead of the election and their declaration of a 2024 presidential ticket, an option not available to voters in states like Connecticut where No Labels cannot gain a party designation until after the election.

Under Connecticut’s current laws, No Labels was legally able to start its bid for ballot access on the first business day in January 2024—the earliest day the Secretary of the State’s Office allows ballot petition signatures to be collected. Major parties, who receive automatic ballot access, are able to start campaigning months in advance. Regardless of who their candidate is, someone with their basic messaging will appear on the ballot. That’s an advantage third parties and independent candidates don’t have. Without a candidate to stand as a figurehead for their movement, there’s little they can do to join the on-the-ground bid to convince voters in the Constitution State, an effort in which major parties have been engaged for months.

Institutional Challenges: Petitioning for Signatures

Laws requiring independent candidates and aspirational political parties to collect thousands of ballot signatures just to get on the ballot are another way states can suppress competition from would-be opponents.

There are fairly straightforward and obvious restrictions on who can sign ballot petitions in most states: only the signatures of eligible voters who provide information, including their names and addresses, are ultimately counted towards the total a candidate needs to collect. Ballot petitions are also organized by municipality, requiring petitioners to juggle multiple sheets simultaneously and often submit sheets to different locations.

But some states also place restrictions on who can collect ballot petition signatures.

Currently, Connecticut’s only requirements are that petition circulators are U.S. citizens of at least 18 years of age and not on parole following a felony conviction. But that’s only because the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut (ACLU) successfully sued to have more restrictive measures removed.

Prior to the ACLU’s victory in Libertarian Party v. Merrill in 2015, Connecticut law required petitioners to be Connecticut residents. Any page that did not contain a sworn statement attesting the petitioner was a resident of the state was thrown out and signatures collected on it were not counted towards ballot eligibility.

Third parties like the Libertarian Party, (LP) which has enjoyed 50-state ballot access in recent presidential election cycles, and the Green Party sometimes employ professional ballot petitioners, who often travel from state to state working to collect signatures for different campaigns and are paid for their efforts. Doing so has several advantages. It maximizes the amount of time petitioners can collect signatures from residents at busy places like shopping centers, allowing parties to maximize signature collecting times that would otherwise fall on volunteers who have other restrictions on their time. Paid ballot petitioners are also experienced and can help ensure that petitions are filled out correctly, minimizing the risk signatures are thrown out. That may be experience party volunteers don’t have.

But prior to the ACLU of CT’s victory in 2015, third parties weren’t able to utilize ballot petitioners from out of state. Unlike major parties, whose endorsed candidates qualify for ballot placement regardless of office, minor parties have to earn recognition on an office-by-office basis. In 2015, the LP qualified as a minor party for three offices. For any other race in which it wished to run a candidate, it had to petition its way onto the ballot by collecting signatures.

In its 2015 lawsuit against former secretary of the state Denise Merrill, the LP argued the residency requirement violated its First Amendment rights. The Connecticut LP alleged that “(l)imiting the pool of professional circulators to in-state professionals creates a monopoly for Connecticut professional circulators, thereby decreasing the ability of the Party to negotiate favorable contract terms, with the effect of dramatically increasing the cost of nominating petition signature drives.” Additionally, the suit claimed the residency requirement made it difficult for the party to “disseminate its political views, to choose the most effective way of conveying its message, to associate in a meaningful way with prospective circulators for the purpose of eliciting political change, to gain access to the ballot, and to utilize the endorsement of its candidates, which can be implicit in a circulator’s efforts to gather signatures on the candidates’ behalf.”

A U.S. District Court judge agreed with the LP’s argument and enjoined the residency requirement in a 2016 decision in favor of the party.

Safety or Expression: Petition Requirements in a Pandemic

The 2015 case wasn’t the only time the LP challenged the state’s ballot signature requirements. 

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the LP challenged the state’s signature requirements and sought to have all endorsed candidates, regardless of whether they were running in a race for which the party was recognized as a minor party and had automatic ballot access for that office. 

They were joined by the Independent Party, another of the state’s recognized minor parties, and several unaffiliated candidates for president who alleged that the state’s requirements they collect ballot signatures in the middle of the pandemic restricted their ballot access. 

The LP argued that the signature requirements violated their First Amendment Rights and their Fourteenth Amendment rights, namely the equal protection clause.

The state did take some measures to ease ballot signature requirements, including reducing the number of signatures a candidate was required to collect and allowing signatures to be collected electronically. However, major parties, which receive automatic ballot access for all offices, were unaffected by this because they did not have to collect any ballot signatures. Independent and minor party candidates, however, did, which the LP argued gave established parties an advantage over it, something the Supreme Court has suggested is unconstitutional.

This time, the U.S. District Court was unpersuaded. Despite claims from the Independent Party that restrictions on door-to-door canvassing (not ruled essential work under pandemic-era stay-at-home orders) were a restriction on core political speech, the court ruled this was not the case because restrictions had loosened by late spring, the time the Independent Party indicated it began petitioning. At best, the court ruled, the Independent Party could show pandemic restrictions made their petitioning less effective, which it found did not rise to the level of a First Amendment issue.

On appeal, the LP lost again, with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals finding the roughly seven-month petitioning period for that year did not impose a severe enough burden on the parties. They also reaffirmed the idea that states have an interest in requiring candidates for office to demonstrate support before appearing on the ballot.

Sore Losers: Major Party Candidates’ Legal Action Against Minor Parties

There is also precedent in Connecticut for major parties trying to keep minor party candidates off the ballot.

In 2022, former Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski lost a legal bid to block the Independent Party (IP) from running a gubernatorial candidate, alleging the party had failed to follow its own bylaws at its convention in nominating Rob Hotaling and Stewart “Chip” Beckett to the gubernatorial ticket. 

The IP’s bylaws utilize a form of ranked-choice voting as part of their candidate nomination process, requiring a candidate to receive 51 percent of the vote and removing low-performing candidates in subsequent rounds of voting if that threshold is not initially achieved. Stefanowski, who was seeking a cross-party endorsement from the IP, alleged the party violated this requirement by having party chairman Michael Telesca twice cast a tie-breaking vote that did not result in Hotaling receiving 51 percent of the vote.

Connecticut is one of only a few states that allows cross-endorsement of candidates. Under Connecticut’s rules, a candidate can appear multiple times on the ballot if they receive the nomination of a major party and one or more minor parties.

A superior court judge agreed that the IP violated its bylaws in the process it used to endorse Hotaling and Beckett, but dismissed Stefanowski’s claims on the grounds it did not have standing. The role of the Secretary of the State (SOTS), the decision noted, is ministerial and limited in nature to acting as the repository of endorsement papers and placing them on the ballot.

“This ministerial duty does not represent a “ruling of an elected official” because it is neither (1) a question presented to the Secretary, nor (2) an interpretation of some statue, regulation, or other authoritative legal requirement, applicable to the election process.” Judge Cesar Noble wrote.

In short, Noble concluded that parties have discretion in interpreting their bylaws and the judiciary’s role was not to supplant party decisions.

In another 2022 challenge to the IP’s ballot status, Republican state treasurer candidate Harry Arora also tried to keep Jennifer Baldwin, the IP’s candidate for state treasurer, off the ballot. Like Stefanowski, Arora had sought and failed to obtain a cross-endorsement from the IP. 

Arora claimed that the IP was not authorized to nominate candidates for state office in the 2022 general election because it had not filed bylaws with the SOTS’s office for the position of state treasurer. Arora’s claim rested on a 2019 ruling from the state supreme court, which stated that minor parties needed to refile rules every time their candidate qualified for minor party status by receiving more than one percent of the vote and do so at least 60 days prior to a nomination.

Arora’s lawsuit alleged the IP hadn’t filed party bylaws since March 2010 and hadn’t done so for state offices, making them ineligible to nominate a state treasurer candidate.

Arora delayed his lawsuit until after the ruling in Stefanowski’s lawsuit, filing his challenge on September 19, 2022. According to Arora, this was because he “had no option to pursue enforcement of the filing requirement until September 15, 2022, when the Secretary gave notice to the town clerks that Baldwin’s name should be placed on the ballot.” 

The timing of Arora’s challenge, which came after ballots for the election had begun to be printed, did not sit well with the court, which argued he could have challenged earlier, or at least asked the SOTS for clarification so as to determine whether an enforcement challenge was necessary earlier.

While Superior Court Judge John Farley agreed that the SOTS made a ruling in determining the IP had complied with filing requirements and that this was at odds with the state supreme court’s ruling, he declined to rule in favor of Arora because of the delay in his challenge.

“The court nevertheless declines to afford the plaintiff the relief he seeks because: the plaintiff inexcusably delayed his pursuit of this claim and the delay caused undue prejudice to the Secretary and Baldwin; the plaintiff waived his rights to pursue this claim by attempting to take advantage of the Independent Party nomination process that he now claims was illegitimate; and under the circumstances equity does not favor the plaintiff’s effort to have Baldwin’s name removed from the ballot.” Farley concluded.

The Bully Pulpit

But even when independent and minor party candidates are able to overcome institutional challenges to ballot access created by the state, they may still face challenges from major parties who use their platform and influence to paint third parties as “spoilers.”

That’s the position No Labels, generally viewed despite its self-described centrist label as an offshoot of the Democratic Party, finds itself in currently.

Even if the party successfully gets a presidential candidate placed on Connecticut’s ballot ahead of the 2024 election, might potential voters dissatisfied with both major parties and the likelihood of a rematch between historically unpopular candidates be persuaded away from a third-party vote by big political players telling them a vote for an independent is a vote for the other party?

That depends on who you ask.

According to statements Democrats have made to and in the media, the coalition of independent voters who don’t identify with either party or who are fed up with the candidates offered by major parties don’t exist to begin with and are merely a mask for No Labels’ “big money donors.”

In their op-ed Looney and Duff refer to No Labels not as a political party, but as a “dark money political movement” and a “nonprofit that doesn’t divulge its donors.” In support of this, they purport to dismantle No Labels’ claims that a majority of the electorate doesn’t want either Biden or Trump as the next president.

“Its existence assumes that unaffiliated American voters are yearning for some third way, some candidate without a Democrat or Republican “label” to swoop in and pass legislation to assist the masses,” Looney and Duff write, “That assumption couldn’t be more wrong, and No Labels’ actions to date couldn’t be more telling about what its true intentions are: expanding the income and opportunity gaps in America by catering to conservative, corporate Republicans and the machinations of a few fringe Democrats. And in 2024, that’s a recipe for disaster in America.”

They cite Pew Research Center Polling finding “almost 90% of unaffiliated American voters actually identify as or lean and regularly vote either Democrat or Republican.” Of the remaining ten percent of unaffiliated voters, they state Pew found a third of them voted in the 2018 midterms and that they are “notoriously disinterested in the political process.”

“Then, who is No Labels purporting to represent in 2024? One-third of 10% of 40% of American voters? This equates to about 1.3% of all American voters,” Looney and Duff wrote.

Looney and Duff don’t cite a specific Pew report, but a report from 2019 noted that while 38 percent of Americans view themselves as independents, less than 10 percent had no partisan leaning and stood out for “their low level of interest in politics.”

Inside Investigator attended a No Labels media briefing in late October, during which a pollster shared the organization’s own polling, based on 2020 exit polls. According to the group, 57 percent of the American electorate want a third choice rather than Biden or Trump in 2024—22 percent of Democrats, 18 percent of Republicans, and 17 percent of Independents.

No Labels also conducted polling with HarrisX between July 28 and August 3 this year in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, contacting between 1,142 and 1,213 registered voters in each state. 

The polling results show 63 percent of voters across the surveyed states would consider a moderate third-party candidate if the 2024 election shakes down to Biden and Trump. Sixty-nine percent of surveyed voters in those same states supported efforts by No Labels and others to add third-party candidates to the ballot and 81 percent across states said more choices on the ballot should be encouraged. Eighty-two percent supported the idea that ballot access is an expression of free speech.

More recent Pew polls suggest the number of independent voters in the electorate remains around 10 percent. A political typology constructed in 2021 found around 15 percent of the public have no clear partisan orientation. In the 2020 election, they accounted for roughly 10 percent of voters.

But their data also shows a desire for more political parties, with 37 percent of in an October 2023 survey strongly agreeing with a statement expressing a desire for more political parties to choose from. Pew’s data also suggests that one of the reasons independents tend to lean towards a political party may have something to do with political narratives that demonize opposing parties.

An August 2022 survey found believing that the opposing party’s policies are harmful to the country is a major reason why self-identified Democratic and Republican voters choose to remain loyal to their party. According to Pew, 78 percent of Republicans cite harm caused by Democrats and 76 percent cite the positive impact of Republican policies as reasons they identify with their party. Sixty-eight percent of Democrats cited the same negatives of Republican policies and positives of Democratic parties as reasons for their continued partisan affiliation. 

The same survey found those beliefs were a particularly prominent reason, cited by 57 percent of Republican-leaning independents and 55 percent of Democrat-leaning independents, independent voters lean towards or identify with a major party.

In September, the executive director of Utah’s Democratic Party circulated talking points via email to county chairs outlining strategies for dealing with No Labels. That email referenced instructions from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for state and county parties to not publicly mention No Labels, but suggested elected officials were okay to make public statements. While the email claimed the instructions came from the DNC, a DNC official told CBS News that the information was prepared by Third Way and forwarded by the DNC.

Those talking points include references to No Labels’ third-party efforts as “breathtakingly arrogant” and as anti-democratic, talking points that drive home the idea a No Labels candidate would be harmful to the country and seem poised, based on Pews’ findings, to drive independent-leaning voters towards Democrats.

No Labels Flips the Narrative

But should the number of independents in the electorate — whether they are closer to numbers cited by Looney and Duff or by No Labels — matter? Do groups like No Labels have a right to seek ballot access?

That’s certainly the view of Jay Nixon, former governor of Missouri and director of No Label’s ballot integrity project.

Asked by Inside Investigator about Looney and Duff’s op-ed branding No Labels’ ballot access project a threat to democracy, Nixon ascribed that view as “coming from people who don’t understand democracy.” Nixon questioned the idea that “the way to save democracy is less democracy.”

He says that “voting is a sacred right until it challenges their turf” and added that America’s major parties are forcing Americans to choose between options they don’t like instead of giving them better choices. That approach, he continued, not only shuts down choices, but drives voters’ cynicism of the electoral system. 

“We live in a strange spin world where you attack the strength of your opponent by saying they’re the exact opposite. Petitions from citizens are a danger to democracy? It’s the exact opposite. It’s an opportunity to speak,” Nixon said.

In October, President Joe Biden responded to questions about former Connecticut senator (and longtime friend of Biden’s) Joe Lieberman’s involvement with No Labels.

While repeating the idea that a No Labels presidential candidate would pull more voters from Democrats than Republicans, acting as a “spoiler” for Biden’s own campaign, the president did state that the group has a “democratic right” to back a candidate.

“Now, it’s going to help the other guy, and [Lieberman] knows. That’s a political decision he’s making that I obviously think is a mistake. But he has a right to do that.” Biden said in an interview with ABC News. Those statements prompted No Labels to write an open letter to state and local Democratic party chairs asking them to back off characterizing the group as a threat to democracy. The letter also came on the back of guidance from the DNC sent to state and local party chairs encouraging them to denounce No Labels and use the “threat to democracy narrative.”

“This isn’t an attack on No Labels—it’s an attack on the most fundamental democratic and constitutional principles that the Democratic Party is supposed to defend.” Lieberman, Nixon, and No Labels national co-chair Benjamin Chavis wrote.

“The DNC is part of a broader and more organized campaign to subvert No Labels’ ballot access efforts that are on the razor’s edge of violating federal law. Engaging in tactics such as these is a blatant violation of the basic constitutional rights that No Labels and its supporters enjoy under the First Amendment rights of freedom of association and freedom of speech.” the letter continued.

Inside Investigator reached out to the Connecticut Democratic Party for comment about whether the state party had any intentions to lobby against No Labels but received no response. Sens. Looney and Duff also did not respond to a request for comment on whether they stood behind their op-ed’s assertion that No Labels is a threat to democracy.

Where Are They Now?

Major parties have an institutional advantage over independent and third-party candidates in that they do not need an actual candidate to begin campaigning during an election year. With ballot access guaranteed, their primary processes can stretch over the course of months. At the end of it, someone who agrees with their core principles is going to appear on the ballot.

Third parties and independent candidates don’t have that guarantee. In states like Connecticut, petitioning to get on the ballot is the first major step a campaign can take. But that requires having a candidate.

Now that Connecticut’s petition period for 2024 is open, No Labels and any other independent candidates interested in appearing in the state’s presidential race can finally start catching up. However, No Labels leadership says it is a strategic decision to hold off:

The period to petition for signatures to appear on the 2024 ballot runs through August, but despite having less than 240 days until that deadline No Labels has yet to name a candidate. Reached for comment shortly before publication, No Labels Chief Strategist Ryan Clancy said they “always planned to decide sometime after Super Tuesday whether to offer our ballot line to a Unity ticket” and that they will only do so “if we believe [the ticket] has a viable path to victory.”

“No Labels will be securing ballot access in 34 states that allow a group like No Labels to secure a ballot line and name a candidate later,” Clancy said in an email. “Sixteen other states either require a named candidate to get on the ballot or just have a much lower threshold of requirements for candidates to get on the ballot. Connecticut is one of those states and a Unity ticket would be responsible for getting on the ballot there.”

Clancy also clarified that they can only make this decision once they have “more clarity about who the major party nominees will be” and that they “expect a Unity ticket to be able to compete in all 50 states.”

“We’re hitting every ballot access goal we set and over 1,000,000 Americans have now signed petitions to get No Labels on the ballot,” Clancy said.

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