"We’re a whole year ahead of where we were in 2016,” Brian Carroll, a retired teacher and candidate for next president of the United States, tells me. Carroll is not, as you might worry, another of this election cycle’s endless supply of Democratic nominees you’ve never heard of. He has already won his nomination contest. The Californian is running on behalf of the American Solidarity Party, which these days seems a whole year ahead of the Democratic national committee, too.  

Back in 2016, the American Solidarity Party (ASP) had only just incorporated and was, into that August and September, still figuring out its slate of potential electors for Colorado, the one state where its then candidate, Mike Maturen, was on the ballot, and the 25 others where write-in votes (when a candidate’s name does not appear on the voting slip) would count. Maturen was a late addition to the “top of ticket”; an original presidential candidate had dropped out due to fear of losing his employment. ASP received 6,776 votes.