No Labels wants to be recognized as a political party in NC. Democrats are skeptical – WRAL News

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina elections officials are facing an unusual decision: Whether to recognize a political group called No Labels as a political party. The unusual part: The group’s own founder says it isn’t a party.

No Labels is a 501c4 “social welfare” group, a campaign finance classification that also covers most traditional political action committees. The group petitioned the state board of elections for recognition as a political party earlier this year. The recognition would give the group the ability to place candidates on statewide ballots.

As a 501c4, it doesn’t have to disclose its donors, unlike political parties. That’s why some detractors have called No Labels a “dark money” group.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections is expected to vote on whether to recognize No Labels Sunday at an annual state conference of election officials.

‘Insurance policy’

“This is an insurance policy, maybe to be used, maybe not to be used,” Jacobson told NBC. “Maybe at the end of the day, all we’re doing is building a movement.”

Jacobson insisted that the group would not act as a spoiler and would only mount a ticket if there’s a real chance of victory. But she wouldn’t say under what circumstances the group would take its name off the ballot.

She pointed to polling that shows low public approval ratings for the presumptive front-runners of both major parties, Trump and President Joe Biden.

“If we come to April and the American people want another choice,” Jacobson said, “shouldn’t the American people have the chance for another choice?”

Jacobson said the group is close to meeting its fundraising goal of $70 million to get the party on the ballot in all 50 states. But she declined to disclose the donors of that money, something other political parties are required to do.

“We’re not a party,” she said, saying the group is pursuing recognition as a party only because that’s what many states require for ballot access.

“That’s just language,” Jacobson said.

State board questions and pushback

State law requires new parties to gather thousands of signatures on petitions to qualify for recognition. Many of the board’s queries to date have focused on what No Labels instructed its paid signature gatherers to tell voters about “the general purpose and intent of the new party.”

Jacobson’s NBC interview sparked another round of questioning. In a letter this week, state elections board attorney Paul Cox asked No Labels’ attorney, former state Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, to explain whether petition signers were told that the group isn’t truly a political party. He also asked for an explanation of the relationship between the national No Labels, which says it isn’t a political party, and the state group seeking recognition as just that.

In a press release Thursday, the group reiterated that it is not a political party, but accused the board of “operating outside of state law” by refusing to recognize them as such. Lawyers for No Labels, meanwhile, have accused the state elections board of delaying their approval vote.

“I remain gravely concerned that the board is playing partisan politics with North Carolinians’ constitutional right to ballot access, and urge them to refrain from engaging in any form of voter suppression,” Benjamin Chavis, a civil rights leader associated with the group, said in the statement.

The state board of elections declined to comment on the allegations.

“It would be premature to comment on a matter that the State Board has not yet decided,” said NCSBE spokesman Patrick Gannon.