Question about deadlines for running for president

[Silent3]

In another thread about the the idiocy of Kanye West running for president, someone brought up the idea that he would have already missed deadlines in many states for registering to run.

But that made me think about the Democratic and Republican conventions. We all know who the nominees will be already, but they haven't formally been selected and announced by their respective parties yet.

How could the deadlines for running for president in the general election expire before the major parties have officially selected their nominees?

Is their some confusion going on here between when you have to register to run in a primary vs. running in the general election?

Or are candidates hoping to win a primary, at least in some states, obligated to register for running in the general election too, before the primaries are over, just in case they do win a primary?

[pwb]

1. Kanye talks threw his ass like trump.

He cant run.

[FBaggins]

2. There is no deadline for running

The various deadlines are for getting placed on the ballot (you could always be written in). Individual states set their own rules for who gets printed on the ballot.

How could the deadlines for running for president in the general election expire before the major parties have officially selected their nominees?

In all cases that I know of, recognized parties (the number varies) get a ballot line and get to select their own candidate. So... for instance... there's already a slot for the DNC and RNC candidates ever though neither party has formally selected/announced that name. In some states, there are several parties that have this privilege (usually earned by a previous candidate receiving more votes than some formal threshold).

BUT... if you can't garner the formal nomination of a party that already has a ballot line... you have to qualify for each state's ballot individually... with different requirements (deadline date... number of nominating signatures... etc.)

[Miguelito Loveless]

3. Kanye is Trump's tool

doing this at Trump’s bidding.

[Silent3]

4. Getting on the ballot is really what I was getting at

And sure, someone could announce on November 2 and plead for everyone to write their names in, for all the good that would do.

But even if, like you say, the major parties already have slots on the ballot no matter what, we usually do see the actual names of the actual candidates on the ballots, not just "Democrat for president" or "Republican for president", so I'd think the deadline for getting a candidate's real name printed on the ballot would have to be sometime after the conventions.

Do the major parties have some sort of built-in advantage here, so that they can get the names of their nominees on the ballots in some states later than non-major party candidates?

[Gothmog]

5. The major parties are qualified already

Ballot access is a fun area of the law. There is actually a treatise on ballot access law. Here is a link to a blog on this topic https://ballot-access.org/ The major political parties are in effect grandfathered and so have until mid September to name their nominees (this is due to mailing deadline for overseas ballots). Third parties have to either received a specified percentage of the vote in the last election or get on the ballot by signatures. This takes a great deal of work and a ton of signatures. For example, the Green Party may not be on the ballot in a number of states due to the difficulty of getting signatures in today's COVID environment

Link to tweet

[Silent3]

6. Thanks!

Good news about the Greens and the Libertarians too. We need every vote we can get to make sure we dump Trump, and these independents and minor parties would just fuck that up.

[Gothmog]

7. Remember Evan McMullin?

Link to tweet

[Silent3]

8. I'm not personally worried about Kayne in particular being an electoral threat

For me the topic of Kayne merely got me thinking about how independents get on ballots in general, and the general problem any independent (or the collective vote-siphoning of multiple independents) can cause when there are tight elections and small numbers of votes really matter.

I think that there's a good chance of Biden trouncing Trump, and taking plenty of Republicans down with him.

But planning as if it'll be a narrow win is always best.

[Gothmog]

9. Neither am I

I volunteer a great deal of time on voter protection efforts and election law is a hobby. It is very difficult to get on the ballot in most states. If West does try, he will have to sue and there will be pushback in the courts.

The Democratic Party and the Biden campaign are planning to fight GOP voter suppression efforts. I had a training session last week for the Texas primary run off and will part of a virtual war room on July 14

[Silent3]

10. Thank you for that effort! Excellent work! n/t