The Secretary of State recently announced that there is a new registered political party in the state of California, which makes it the first new one since 1995. Named the Americans Elect Party, it reached qualification by collecting petition signatures of 1,030,040 registered voters (10 percent of the total number of votes cast in the November 2, 2010, General Election). The Bee reports that “more than $2 million to collect 1.6 million California voter signatures as part of its national campaign to ensure its eventual presidential ticket is on the ballot in all 50 states next November.”

In June of 2012, Americans Elect will hold a virtual convention in order to pick an alternative, bipartisan ticket to run on the November ballot in all 50 states. It will be America’s first online, national nominating convention. So come next November, voters in California could select a presidential ticket that was picked by an online process. The group is dedicated to selected multi-partisan tickets and has already secured spots for ballot access in 12 states.

Americans Elect states the following as its goal: “To give every single voter – Democrat, Republican or independent – the power to nominate a presidential ticket in 2012."

The State of California now has 7 registered political parties. More about the group can be seen here.