Some would decry this as

Some would decry this as an example of the unfair monopoly of power by the major parties:

The New York Liberal Party, billed by members as the longest existing third party in the nation, has shut down after nearly 60 years of helping to elect candidates from John F. Kennedy to Rudolph Giuliani.

The Liberal Party failed to collect the 50,000 votes it needed in November's gubernatorial race to maintain its status as a recognized party. As a result, the party lost its automatic ballot slots in New York.

But if you can't manage the 50,000 votes needed in a state the size of New York, then that tells me that the party doesn't have enough support to warrant its own existence. And really, the party only has existed as long as it has because New York state allows vote-pooling, so to be nominated by the Dems and the Libs meant all the votes counted together, so the degree to which the Liberals were a true third party in those elections in which is nominated the same candidate as the Dems (or, the case of Giuliani, the Reps) is questionable.

Posted by Steven Taylor at March 9, 2024 03:02 PM | TrackBack