MADISON – The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday received a petition from the group No Labels to receive ballot status in Wisconsin ahead of the 2024 General Election.
The petition makes use of an uncommon path for a political party to achieve ballot status found in Wis. Stat. § 5.62(2)(a). If the Commission finds the petition to be sufficient, the political party would have the opportunity for its candidates for President and Vice President to be printed on the General Election ballot.
Political parties that have attained ballot status through the more commonly used process currently are the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Constitution, and Green Parties.
For parties with ballot status, the names of their President and Vice President candidates are placed on the General Election ballot when their names are certified to the WEC by the state or national party no later than 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 3, 2024.
Achieving ballot status through Wis. Stat. § 5.62(2)(a) would also entitle No Labels to a separate ballot for all partisan offices at the August 13, 2024 Partisan Primary and for all other offices at the November 5, 2024 General Election.
The petition from No Labels to achieve ballot status through Wis. Stat. § 5.62(2)(a) must contain valid signatures of at least 10,000 Wisconsin electors, including at least 1,000 signatures of electors residing in each of at least 3 different congressional districts. The first day for circulating this petition was January 1, 2024, and the deadline for filing the petition is 5:00 p.m. on April 1, 2024.
Individuals interested in challenging the sufficiency of the No Labels petition have 10 days to do so, which would result in a challenge deadline of Monday, April 8, 2024 (accounting for the weekend). Wis. Stat. § 8.40; EL § 2.11(2)(b). The response would then be due 5 days after the challenge is filed. EL § 2.11(3). No Labels has claimed they have submitted 26,775 signatures, although the number of valid signatures has not yet been determined by the Commission.
The WEC plans to make the petition available to view, free of charge, on the WEC’s Badger Voters website, https://badgervoters.wi.gov/.
