Politico – Getting on the ballot has enormous stakes. “Independent and third-party candidates are potential disruptors for Joe Biden and Donald Trump in a race expected to be decided by razor thin margins. But before these candidates become true threats, they have to first get on the ballot. “And if you are not on the ballot, your candidacy does not exist,” Ralph Nader’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaign manager Theresa Amato wrote. “No ballot access, no votes.” Getting your name printed on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win the Electoral College earns a third-party candidate not only political legitimacy, but also satisfies one of the requirements to appear on debate stages — which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. failed to meet for the first presidential debate. Biden and Trump have high unfavorables, raising third-party candidate appeal and potential vote share in states that are often decided by thousands of votes. Polling and historic trends single out the well-established Libertarian and Green parties’ nominees, Kennedy, who has historically high polling for an independent candidate, and academic Cornel West as the most influential candidates Getting on the ballot is arduous, expensive and bureaucratic, and every state has different requirements. If you’ve ever tried to circulate a birthday card around your office, Amato wrote, “you may have a ten-thousandth of an idea how difficult it is to collect this many signatures across fifty states and the District of Columbia.” That’s why we’re tracking who’s on the ballot, where and why it matters…”