Conservative Independent Candidate McMullin Gains Access to More State Ballots

There will be extra names on the presidential ballots in Louisiana and Iowa in November.

Evan McMullin, the last minute entry into the presidential race, has qualified to be on both ballots.

McMullin’s campaign opted to pay the $500 qualifying fee, instead of gathering 5,000 signatures, due Friday, to get on the Louisiana ballot. Of the four candidates that filed and qualified Friday — McMullin, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Constitution Party candidate Darrell Castle, and Veterans Party candidate Chris Keniston — “no one qualified for president using signatures, everyone qualified paying the amount of money that was required,” said Louisiana secretary of state press secretary Meg Casper.

However, McMullin gathered the 1500 signatures representing 10 counties needed to get on the Iowa ballot, the Iowa secretary of state’s office confirmed. “They brought in their paperwork 11 minutes before the deadline,” said communications director Kevin Hall. “They turned in a lot more signatures than they needed.”

McMullin, running as a conservative independent, is a former House Republican Conference policy director and a CIA operative. He entered the race to be a conservative option to the longtime Manhattan liberal the GOP chose to have as the nominee at the top of their ticket.

It will be an uphill fight for McMullin, all the way to November. He has made the ballot in Utah and Colorado, but the filing deadline for many states has already closed.

Ten states’ independent candidate filing deadlines remain. Up next is Oregon on Monday, which will require more than 17,000 signatures to appear on the state’s general election ballot.

I’ve got my fingers crossed for McMullin, as well as the others. The two party system has betrayed the people.

While this may not be the year a third party wins it all, it may be the year that the voters are shaken out of their apathy and become more aware of what can happen if they just allow others to make decisions for them.

I’ve always maintained that if a third party was serious about making an impact, they should do most of their footwork between election cycles. They should be in constant campaign mode, so that when an election year comes around, they’ve comfortably moored themselves into the public’s consciousness.

Until that happens, however, and with the choices given us by the Big Two parties, I’m quite happy rooting for the underdog.

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