The Green Papers
2012 Political Parties
Parties Grouped by Classification

The Classification of Political parties listed on TheGreenPapers.com.

1. Major Parties (those parties which received electoral votes through winning a plurality of a state's [or the District of Columbia's] popular vote in any presidential election between 1980 and 2008)
1. Democrats and affiliates
2. Republicans and affiliates
2. Third Parties
1. Major Third Parties and affiliates (any Party, other than a Major Party [as defined in 1. above], receiving a minimum of 15/100ths of 1 percent of the nationwide popular vote in any presidential election between 1980 and 2008 and which fielded candidates in the previous presidential election [2008] are hereby defined as "Major third parties" for the purposes of "The Green Papers" website. Excluded from this are non-party Independent bids for President which received at least 0.15% of the nationwide popular vote. See Criteria for including Major Third Parties.)
2. Other Third Parties (i.e., not a Major Third Party)
3. Independents (covering Unaffiliated, Nonpartisan and all the other synonyms/euphemisms for Independent)
4. Write-in/Scattered/otherwise not readily classifiable

Incumbents, candidates, and links to state affiliates
467 Incumbents
643 Candidates

Parties are listed as (party) where either it has been reported that a given candidacy is affiliated with a given Party but said affiliation does not appear on the ballot or 'The Green Papers' does not have independent confirmation from an election authority that the given Party has its own separate line on the ballot.