A national political movement that could offer a two-tier presidential ticket in 2024 as an alternative to major party nominees said Monday it

now

won ballot access in 10 states after North Carolina election officials formally granted official status to a

No labels

branch.

The State Board of Elections voted 4-1 on Sunday to recognize the No Labels Party as an official North Carolina party after a successful petition. It joins four other recognized parties with which voters can now choose to register and run for office.

The new North Carolina party is linked to a national No Labels effort that enumerates a wide range of mostly centrist political leaders who support it. They include the former GOP Gov of North Carolina. Pat McCrory, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin III (DW.Va.) and former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, a former Democrat who became an independent.

No Labels is about to offer a two-way ticket for president and vice president if Democrats and Republicans unreasonably select divisive presidential candidates. North Carolina, usually considered a battlefield state, has 16 electoral votes at stake.

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The other states are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, and Utah.

Reaching 10 states is “a historic victory for Americans who have said loud and clear they want more choices at the ballot box. The spirit of democracy is winning in America today, civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis, a North Carolina native and national co-chair of No. Labels, said in a press release Monday.

There is no named ticket for No Labels yet. Group leaders have said it would resign if there was no clear path to victory next year. But some Democrats fear that won’t happen

and could lead, lead

inadvertently leading to the election of Republican Donald Trump. National left groups have worked to derail the group’s presidential ambitions.

North Carolina state law says that to be recognized, a party must collect signatures from registered voters equal to 0.25% of the total number of voters who voted in the last gubernatorial election in 2020, or just under 13,900 signatures . State election officials agreed that no label garnered more than 14,800 signatures, as well as meeting the requirement that at least 200 signatures each come from three congressional districts.

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The other official parties in North Carolina are the Democratic, Republican, Green, and Libertarian parties. Voters can also register as unaffiliated, representing the largest bloc in the state.

Board chairman Alan Hirsch and member Jeff Carmon, both Democrats, aligned themselves with the Republicans

Four Eggers

and Kevin Lewis in voting for the official recognition. Democratic member Siobhan ODuffy Millen voted against.

The official recognition followed questions asking for more information about No Labels, particularly its connection to the national movement, and whether it really fit the definition of a party.

The board was also interested in whether the party’s signature collectors were properly informing signatories of the party’s overall purpose and intent, as required by state law.

No Labels presented affidavits from collectors saying they were instructed to share in part that it was a celebration of bringing all parties together to get things done in Washington through a unity ticket and that the petition allows a third party to run candidates for the presidential election.

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But Millen said the evidence wasn’t strong enough and questioned whether North Carolina’s No Labels Party met the party definition.

She pointed to media reports quoting national No Labels leaders saying they would not up-vote candidates and that operations would end after the November 2024 election.

It seems to me that North Carolina law doesn’t adequately address this new situation when a group’s goal is to secure a spot in one election rather than become a continuing party, Millen said.

While the national No Labels group is organized under a section of federal tax law in which it does not now disclose its donors, the state affiliate would have to follow the state’s campaign finance disclosure rules, as the other recognized parties must do.

Eggers, who introduced the motion to recognize the No Labels Party, said he shared some of Millen’s concerns. But he said there was no doubt that the party met the numerical signature threshold and that the standard to meet general purpose and intent requirements was quite low.