Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab on Friday announced that United Kansas could be recognized as the state’s newest political party.
Schwab said United Kansas met the requirements by submitting a petition containing the signatures of registered voters equal to 2% of the total votes cast in the 2022 statewide gubernatorial general election.
The signatures on the petition were validated by county election officials who reported their results to the secretary of state’s office, as required by law.
Earlier this year, the secretary of state recognize No Labels Kansas as a party.
No Labels had intended to put forward a third-party ticket for president, but the effort fizzled after the national party dropped plans to put forward a candidate.
As a minor political party, United Kansas can’t participate in the August primary election and instead must nominate candidates for the November general election with convention or caucus by noon on June 3.
A minor party can become a major party and be entitled to nominate its general election candidates at the August primary if its candidate for governor receives more than 5% of the statewide vote.
The United Kansas Party is planning to hold nominating conventions next week to nominate candidates for state and local office in the general election.
The conventions will be held in individual election districts across the state in which a candidate is running for office.
“Today’s recognition of United Kansas moves us one step closer to a more vibrant, representative democracy in Kansas,” said party chair Jack Curtis.
“Too many Kansans feel stranded in the increasing divide between the two major parties. Having earned the support of more than 35,000 voters, United Kansas will help bridge this gap by backing viable candidates who are focused on real problem-solving in our communities,” Curtis said in a statement.
The party’s vice chair is Sally Cauble, a former member of the state Board of Education, and the treasurer is Aaron Estabrook of Manhattan
Estabrook comes to the endeavor with a history of political experience, serving on the Manhattan City Commission and the Manhattan-Ogden Board of Education.
Estabrook also tried to create the Moderate Party of Kansas. The moderate party wasn’t created but later became a political action committee.
The United Kansas party was created with a goal of backing “fusion candidates” who could represent more than one party on the ballot.
Fusion voting allows multiple parties to nominate the same candidate for the same office in a general election.
While the two major parties nominate different candidates, third parties may cross over and endorse one of the major party candidates and “fuse” with them.
Supporters of fusion voting say it gives voters more choice, empowers minority parties and brings together a coalition of people with many different ideologies.
Organizers of United Kansas believe that fusion voting is constitutional in Kansas, although the secretary of state’s office has not ruled on the issue.
In Kansas, in the 1892, 1894, 1896 and to an extent in the 1898 elections, the Populist Party and the Democratic Party would nominate the same individual to the same office.
So the person’s name appeared on the ballot twice.
After the Republicans swept the November 1900 election, in the 1901 session, they immediately enacted legislation to prohibit “fusion tickets.”
They barred anyone from accepting “more than one nomination for the same office” and said that “the name of each candidate shall be printed on the ballot once and no more.”
At that time, the candidates were nominated by convention, so the two political party leaders could agree on a fusion ticket.
The state has a law on the books that says a candidate’s name can only appear on the ballot once.
Here’s how it works from a modern perspective, using New York as an example of a state with a fusion system.
During the 2022 governor’s race in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul appeared on the ballot for both the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party.
Her opponent, Lee Zeldin, appeared on both the Republican Party and Conservative Party ticket.
The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School reports that five states — Connecticut, Mississippi, New York, Oregon and Vermont — allow fusion voting.
States such as Connecticut and New York use a type of fusion voting where the ballot lists a candidate multiple times, once per party, according to Brennan.
This format gives voters the choice of voting for a candidate under two scenarios, as a Republican or Democrat and as a minor party nominee.
“This option, in turn, serves an important communicative function,” Lauren Miller, counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, said in legislative testimony in Oregon last year on fusion voting.
“If a candidate wins an election with a significant portion of votes from the third-party line, those voters will have sent a clear message about their priorities that they could not have otherwise sent if faced with the choice of voting for a major party candidate or a ‘spoiler’ candidate,” Miller said in that testimony.
Fusion voting is a creature of the 19th century when it was a part of U.S. politics, particularly in the West and Midwest, according to a 2020 Idaho Law Review article exploring the issue.
“By fusing with one of the major parties, third parties were able to influence election results and thus public policy,” the law review found.
“At that time, the process of voting was different. Prior to the 1890s, citizens voted by dropping a ballot listing the candidates they had chosen in an actual ballot box.
“Typically, political parties printed the ballots which listed the party’s slate of candidates, although sometimes voters would create their own ballots.
“Under this system, the state did not participate in the determination of what groups constituted political parties or what candidates they could nominate.
“Parties that wished to fuse could lawfully list the same candidate on their ballots. And, in fact, cross-endorsing was an important part of the system.”
