Signatures delivered, NC Constitution Party waits on election board approval
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — North Carolina voters may get another option on the Nov. ballot. Making their way through security one person at a time the Constitution Party of North Carolina hand delivered boxes containing thousands of signatures to the North Carolina State Board of Elections Monday.
The NCSB said the State Board will review this documentation and determine whether the petition meets the legal requirements as required by state statute.
In order to qualify, 13,865 signatures must be verified. Then, the State Board will meet to consider recognizing the party. If it does, the party could nominate candidates for the 2024 general election ballot during their party convention.
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Once the State Board recognizes the NC Constitution Party, chairman Al Pisano said the race is on to find the right candidates. Potential candidates, from local to statewide, will need to change their party registration.
“So, there’s a lot of legal loop holes that we have to jump through in a very short period of time because we’ve got a certain amount of time because there’s deadlines and if we don’t meet those deadlines all this will be for naught,” said Pisano.
Pisano said he is hearing from voters that they are fed up with the two-party system.
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“It’s been boiling up for years. I’ve been doing this for almost 25 years and this thing has been bubbling and it’s coming to a head now even more than when we got on in 2018,” he said.
Pisano said any potential candidate must believe in the Constitution Party’s core values which include being pro-life from the moment of conception, believing marriage should only be between a man and a woman, be pro second amendment and support the United States’ withdrawal from the United Nations.
There is concern among Republicans that third-parties, like this one, will cost them votes.
Democrats share their own similar concerns with other third-parties.
“The research would suggest that for all the fears that one major party has versus the other about certain third-party candidates, that a lot of times, people find a way to vote for third-parties because they’re just conservatives who are mad and liberals who are mad. So, you don’t end up as clearly ideologically split as you think.
“With the Libertarian Party, you don’t know whether the Libertarian takes from the Democrat or the Republican, because Libertarian is more culturally liberal. But the Constitution Party is a pretty down the line party. I would think this would worry the Mark Robinson people,” said Duke University political scientist Mac McCorkle.
“What we’re doing is we’re giving citizens a choice. Those citizens are making a choice on who they want to vote for. There’s nothing being stolen. That’s the American way. People fought and died in wars to give each one of us the right to choose who you want to vote for, what party you want to be affiliated with or not be affiliated with. We are honoring those people who died in wars by doing what we’re doing. This is America, this is the patriotic thing to do,” said Pisano.
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