ST. LOUIS — U.S. Senate Candidate Jared Young has responded to Missouri voters' rejection of the broken two-party system by unveiling a new party — the Better Party.
This new political entity aims to offer ballot access to quality independent candidates in Missouri, starting with the upcoming November elections. Young will also run for the U.S. Senate under the Better Party banner.
"Getting on the ballot is a huge barrier for independent candidates because we're forced to spend a lot of our resources on this effort to get on the ballot right up front," Young said in an interview with The St. Louis Record. "And resources are already a challenge for independent candidates. So it kind of puts us behind from the very start."
Young said as he was putting the resources together to get himself on the ballot, he realized that he could put those very same resources toward not just getting himself on the ballot, but toward getting other independent candidates on the ballot as well.
"So that they wouldn't have to waste their early resources on ballot access and could instead just focus right from the start on getting their message out to voters," Young said. "Ultimately, that's what I decided to do — use my resources in a way that will help not just me, but other independent candidates so that we have more choices, not just in this election in Missouri, but in future elections as well."
Young said this will help Missouri have more independent voices to be able to challenge the extremes that the other parties are giving voters right now.
Young highlighted the current dominance of extreme views within the two major parties.
"The two major parties have become dominated by extremes on both the right and the left," Young said.
Young said as the Better Party continues, that will mean he can be on there as a Senate candidate, but then if someone wants to run for the State Legislature or run or governor or lieutenant governor as an independent, instead of running as a pure independent, they can run as a Better Party candidate.
"That means that they will not have to go through the signature gathering exercise that they would have to go through if they weren't on the Better Party ballot," Young said.
Young said those who run as pure independents must collect 10,000 signatures from registered voters in the state, which is a tedious process, as there are specific rules for how signatures are collected and each page of signatures must be notarized.
"You can't do an online petition or do anything that would kind of allow you to gather signatures easily in a big group," Young said. "You have to go door-to-door or go to city squares or whatever it is you want to do to collect these signatures on paper and get those signatures notarized."
Young said it is thousands of sheets of paper and it requires either hundreds or thousands of volunteer hours or hundreds of thousands of paid staff hours to be able to get that many signatures in place.
"And once you've got them all gathered together, then you have to submit them to the Secretary of State," Young said. "And realistically, if you want to get it approved by the Secretary of State, you can't just submit 10,000 signatures because some of those signatures aren't going to be valid. Usually, you need to submit more like 15,000 or 20,000 signatures to the Secretary of State to be able to get through the process."
Young said the hope is that as more and more moderate independent candidates are able to get on the ballot, it will force the two parties to come back from the extremes.
"Right now, people are just exhausted by the extremes of both the Republican and the Democratic Party," Young said. "And we feel like if we have viable independent candidates on the ballot, election after election, eventually they're going to be forced to come back from these extremes that they found themselves on and be forced to deal with this exhausted majority of voters that don't like the options that the parties are producing right now."
Young expressed concerns that many voters are left dissatisfied, feeling compelled to vote for the lesser of two extremes rather than a candidate they truly support.
Young chose to establish the Better Party not just for his own candidacy but as a vehicle for future generations.
The Better Party's primary objective is straightforward: provide ballot access for high-caliber independent candidates who prioritize Missouri's needs over partisan interests.