The Board of State Canvassers today certified the petitions filed by the Working Class Party, giving it ballot status for the November 8, 2016 election. The organizers of the new party turned in over 50,000 signatures, almost 39,000 of which were estimated valid, quite a lot more than the 31,566 required.
The organizers of the new party say that the capitalist class has two parties, the working class has none – and that it's time for working people to build their own party, defending their own class interests.
The new party has chosen its candidates for the 2016 elections: Gary Walkowicz for U.S. Congress, district 12; Sam Johnson for U.S. Congress, district 13; and Mary Anne Hering for the State Board of Education, which is a state-wide position.
The Working Class Party knows that elections can't change the massive problems the population faces. Only the struggles and the mobilization of the working class can do that. But it believes that by running one candidate for a state-wide position and two others in important districts, it is giving all working people in Michigan a chance to express their desire to have a party that represents their class. In a country where the working class has not had its own party for nearly a century, this is already something.
There is infomation about each of the candidates on this website, under Michigan 2016.