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The Daily Tar Heel

‘Joke candidates’ flood filing for 2016 elections

Some suggest the ease of filing with the Federal Election Commission inspired new potential candidates, real or otherwise.

Judith Ingram, spokeswoman for the FEC, said anyone can fill out FEC Form 2 — also known as a statement of candidacy — but the person is not considered a candidate until meeting other criteria.

“They don’t become a candidate until they’ve actually raised $5,000 in addition to announcing candidacy,” Ingram said. “So that would be the trigger for us in determining what is a real candidate, but it doesn’t necessarily mean all the rest are what you would call ‘fake candidates.’”

In most cases, hopefuls must then meet requirements beyond the FEC’s to be added to the ballot, said Geoffrey Skelley, spokesman for the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. These requirements also help separate fake candidates from real ones, he said.

“Just because you’ve filed Form 2 with the FEC doesn’t mean that you’re actually going to be on the ballot, because every state has different ballot qualifications,” Skelley said. “Most of them involve either paying a filing fee or getting enough signatures in that state to be on the ballot, or some combination of that. So, of course all of these joke candidates are never going to do it.”

Since the Deez Nuts story broke in late July, more than 500 statements of candidacy have been filed.

“After July 28 in 2012, just 19 candidates filed in that period after that point. And in 2008, just 14 filed,” Skelley said. “Clearly something is going on, and I’m sure it’s the fact that that story’s gotten so much coverage, and that inspired other people to take advantage of the relatively easy process.”

One candidate that has begun the filing process is Dot Com A Wandrlustr — a candidate for the Prohibition Party and the first-ever website to register its candidacy.

John Hunt, a travel writer and filmmaker who runs the blog WandrLustr, said his friend registered his blog with the FEC to help attract new readers. He said his friend, inspired by Mitt Romney’s 2011 quote, “Corporations are people, my friend,” suggested that his website should run for president.

“I thought he was kind of joking at first, but then he sent me an email with all of the paperwork filled out,” Hunt said.

His friend suggested altering the name to draw more attention to the website on the FEC list.

“He said he put an ‘A’ in front of it to top the list. Obviously people aren’t going to cast their votes for a website,” he said. “But people might say, ‘Look, what is going on here? What are these guys doing?’”

state@dailytarheel.com

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