A couple weeks ago when I checked the South Dakota voter registration totals (which show Democrats shrinking to less than 23% of the state’s electorate while Republicans growing toward 51%), I saw a note on the voter registration page indicating that the “No Labels” party, which was on the verge of reaching 100 members, had lost its party status as of September 2.
Really? I wondered. What did they do, or not do, to get the boot?
Political parties can lose their official status two ways. Per SDCL 12-5-1, the national and state party chairpeople may request in writing, with sworn, notarized signatures from each chairperson, that the state no longer recognize their party. A party may involuntarily lose official recognition if it fails to meet SDCL 12-1-3‘s definition of political party:
“Political party,” beginning with the 2014 general election and each general election thereafter, a party whose candidate for any statewide office received at least two and one-half percent of the total votes cast for that statewide office in either of the two previous general election cycles [SDCL 12-1-3(13)].
No Labels secured official recognition in South Dakota in August 2023, so they haven’t had two general election cycles to nominate candidates and win 2.5% of the vote in some statewide race. So they must have asked for dissolution.
I emailed Pierre, and the SOS Division of Elections got back to me to explain that No Labels National Ballot Access Director Nick Connors submitted via email a letter signed by state chair Dan Kirby requesting to withdraw from party status in South Dakota on June 21, 2024. But before that, No Labels never filed the constitution or by-laws that SDCL 12-5-1.1 requires within 30 days of its recognition. Nor did No Labels bother to file a campaign finance statement of organization, year-end report for 2023, or pre-primary report for 2024 as required by SDCL 12-27-22. No Labels submitted a petition with roughly 8,000 signatures, well over twice the legal requirement, to win party status, but it apparently did nothing in South Dakota after that.
The Secretary of State now lists June 21, 2024, as the termination date of No Labels in South Dakota on its Recognized Political Parties webpage, yet it continues to list the registration totals for No Labels through August 2025. No Labels registration grew from 26 on July 1, 2024, to 98 on August 1, 2025, as dozens of South Dakotans signed up for a party that did not exist.
At the national level, No Labels still blogs and lists 22 staff members. We can’t tell who’s paying those staffers, since No Labels has kept its finances secret by not filing as a national political party.