The Democratic-Republican Party of New Jersey, which appears on the ballot as the “D-R Party” (because the state won’t print the actual name of the party), had more candidates for congress in 2014 than any other party in New Jersey, other than the two major parties. It had a U.S. Senate candidate and five U.S. House candidates. Here is the party’s web page.
For the November 2015 election, when all of New Jersey’s Assemblymembers are up, the party plans to have a candidate on the ballot in all 40 districts. Each district elects two, so that involves recruiting 80 candidates. New Jersey defines “political party” to be a group that polled at least 10% of all the votes cast for Assembly, a definition that is so stringent, it has never been used since it was created in 1920, except by the two major parties.
Obviously, if any new party is ever to attain status as a “party”, it needs to run candidates for all 80 seats, to maximize the party’s vote. During the last 60 years, the only group that tried to do that was the Conservative Party in 1997. It succeeded in getting 47 candidates on for the 80 seats.
The D-R Party’s lawsuit over whether or not the two major parties should have lost their party column on the November 2014 ballot is still alive, and is waiting a briefing schedule from the State Appeals Court. A New Jersey law says that even qualified parties can’t have a party column on the November ballot unless their primary turnout that year was 10% of the previous election’s general election turnout. If the law had been enforced, there would have been no party columns on the November 2014 ballot, and all Republican and Democratic nominees would have been given the same unsatisfactory ballot format that all other candidates must suffer.
A member in every district doesn’t imply a candidate for every seat, so there commitment is just to forty candidates.
Well then, I didn’t write the blog post very well, because their goal is 80 candidates.
Ah, so the challenge is to run a candidate for every seat, then.
Too bad the state won’t let them use the full name “Democratic-Republican Party” on the ballot. Really don’t know what they expect to accomplish, even though I admit it better to use this name than some names they could have used.
But if their candidates are serious and campaign as serious candidates, the voters just might pay some attention to them. The major parties – while they don’t want a 3rd party or Independent on the ballot – fear a serious candidate more than they fear the ballot access spot being occupied by a candidates who is not one of them.
Any time someone other than a Democrat or a Republican can hold a space on the ballot, I’m all for it!
Chris – while that might be a mathematically correct statement in interpreting the language above, that is not our goal. We fully intend to run for all 80 seats, and a smattering of NJ Senate Seats – largely to challenge those we have found to be the most egregious in their actions.
Again, we are seeking/vetting candidates for all 80 seats – and have already selected many candidates.
Please understand – there are members of that august body that we are reasonably satisfied with – a few, anyway – so we aren’t intending to run any “straw men”, and we’re far from “spoilers”. Our strongest efforts will be given where they will have the greatest positive effect for the State.
We are, however, very strict about the vetting of anyone who will represent our group. We released one candidate last year before the deadline – and the article does not note that both Pablo Olivera in CD8 and Gwen Franklin in CD10 are actually members in good standing in the Democratic Republican Organization of New Jersey – as they had already submitted their ballot petitions before the Independent Candidate Caucus, which we hosted on 09/06 at Monmouth College’s Guggenheim Library (and at which there were more Federal Candidates than were fielded in 2014 by either so-called “major party” in NJ…in fact, nearly double either one). Neither the Democrat nor Republican Parties met the standard for Primary Turn-out, so Lt. Governor Guadagno issued an unprecedented “certification”, counting every vote cast, rather than every voter – such that, were you to go into the booth and pull a lever for Senator, Congressman, two Freeholders, a Sheriff, a Mayor, a Council-person, and a dog-catcher, congratulations – you’re considered EIGHT VOTERS. Needless to say, that malarkey won’t stand up much longer. If you look up on the State Website the election turn-out on June 3rd, you will find the real total…here’s the bogus certification that was produced to give the County Clerk’s “deniability”. Nice to know your public servants are so fiercely defending party over principle, no? https://www.scribd.com/doc/244122354/2014-LIE-From-Guadagno
There are many concerns over impropriety in this last election…not the least of which are three indictable offenses committed by my opponent (voter Fraud – two Third Degree and one Fourth Degree) that local officials are blocking prosecution of – for now. Hardly done with that, either.
Mr Winger is entirely correct.
You are welcome to reach out with any further questions at upholdtheconstitution@hotmail.com
Frederick John LaVergne, “Democratic-Republican” for Congress, NJ CD3 2016 – “Stand for what’s right, or settle for what’s left” – FJL
In spite of main-stream media attempting to hide our candidates – and party organizations going so far as to ignore bracket requests at the clerk level, and, in my race, in one county, placing me in column six when I drew column three, and not bracketing me with our Senate candidate, who was placed elsewhere on the ballot. I was placed in SIX in a field of three candidates, by the way – as far away from the other candidates as possible. The gamesmanship was illegal, but, as my brother says, “What’s right doesn’t change – who’s in charge can be.”. We could fight for the legal right for the name, but our dollars are being spent elsewhere at the moment – wait until you see what we’ve done about Article the First – right, Mr. Winger? That’s the REAL game-changer.
For voters in NJ tired of a two-horse race where the same stables owns both horses, we offer a valid alternative.
If you’re interested to see the difference in what was on the table for the voters in CD3, here’s the ONLY DEBATE where I was allowed to appear with my so-called “major party” competition…and it was originally published by the media with a one-hour-and-twenty-two-minute LEADER so that anyone clicking the link would think it wasn’t working and hang it up…they get their “mouse-click”, but they don’t embarrass their D and R “donors”. It was a blood bath…Still no sign of the 1600 wheelchairs, btw. 😉
Here’s an hour you won’t regret. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cy92st2QMhk
To keep up with what we’re up to, here’s a FB page… the regular page is being re-worked, as we transition from 16 candidates to over 100.
https://www.facebook.com/FrederickJohnLaVergneForCongress?ref=hl
That’s the plan…so far, so good.