Reform Party to Reorganize North Carolina Affiliate

The Reform Party is working towards ballot access in North Carolina for their candidates in the 2014 elections. The party has not had a ballot qualifying affiliate since 2000. “North Carolina is important,” Nicholas Hensley, the Reform Party’s communications chair and North Carolina organizer said. “It’s a crucial swing state that is necessary to have ballot access in.”

North Carolina is one of the hardest states to gain ballot access in. About 90,000 to 100,000 signatures are needed to gain a spot on the ballot. The Libertarian’s North Carolina affiliate completed the task prior to the 2008 elections, but exhausted enough resources in the process to hinder them in the general election.

“It’s a big undertaking,” Hensley said. “We’ve got less then two years to put together the party infrastructure and petition. It is doable however and we are determined.”

The Reform Party, founded in 1995, was built as a centrist alternative to the Democratic and Republican Parties. The party found prominence in the late 1990s when Ross Perot garnered eight percent of the vote in the 1996 election, and Reform Party member Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota on the party’s ballot line.

Anyone interested in finding out more can visit the Reform Party website at www.reformparty.org or email the North Carolina affiliate at [email protected].