RALEIGH — The North Carolina State Board of Elections announced recognition of another political party in the state on Tuesday, adding the We The People Party of North Carolina to the ballot.

The move paves the way for a Kannapolis candidate, Mark Ortiz, to be included in the upcoming Rowan County Board of Commissioners race.

According to information from the N.C. State Board of Elections, We The People will have other candidates on ballots in November, which it chose during its June 2024 nominating convention. In addition to Ortiz, they include Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Nicole Shanahan for president and vice president of the United States and Jeff Scott of Charlotte for N.C. Senate District 40.

Recognition of this party means voters now have eight choices of party affiliation when registering to vote or updating an existing registration. Voters may register with the Constitution, Democratic, Green, Libertarian, No Labels, Republican or We The People parties, or they can register as unaffiliated. The recognition also means that voters currently registered with a different political party or as unaffiliated may switch their affiliation to the We The People Party if they wish.

The state board will update voter registration applications to include the new political party option. Until then, voters may register with the new party by checking the “Other” box and writing “We The People” on the line in the “Political Party Affiliation” section of the voter registration form.

State board voter data also will be updated to include the new party registrants.

According to a review by state board staff, the We The People submitted 18,309 valid signatures from registered N.C. voters, 4,444 more than the required 13,865 signatures. The signatures were verified by the county boards of elections of the counties in which they were collected. We The People also received at least 200 signatures from three different congressional districts, a requirement of “political party” defined; creation of new party. N.C.G.S. § 163-96(a)(2).