United Citizens Party

United Citizens Party (Patriot Party of South Carolina)
Chairperson	None
Senate leader	None
House leader	None
Founded	1969 as United Citizens party, 1990`s as Patriot party of South Carolina, 1996 as United Citizens party
Ideology	Progressivism, liberal conservatism (formerly)
National affiliation	Reform (1996) Independent (1969-1996, 1996-present)
Colors	Unknown

The United Citizens Party (UCP) was first organized in 1969 in the U.S. state of South Carolina in response to the state Democratic Party's opposition to nominating black candidates. The party's objective was to elect blacks to the legislature and local offices in counties with black majority populations. The party ran candidates in 1970 and 1972; as a result in 1970 the first three black candidates were elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives since Reconstruction.

In South Carolina, as in New York and unlike most other states, a single candidate may be nominated by two or more legally separate political parties. This practice is called electoral fusion. In the past, several South Carolina state legislators, who concurrently served as Democrats, were cross-endorsed by the United Citizens Party. Other political parties that have practiced fusion include the New York Conservative Party, the Working Families Party of New York and the Liberal Party of New York. The American Labor Party was a historically important party in New York State which both practiced fusion and elected candidates independently.

Since the opening up of the state Democratic Party to black candidates, the party has mainly served as a means for various third party candidates to appear on the South Carolina Presidential ballot.

For a period of time in the 1990s the party used the name Patriot Party before returning to its original and current name [1].

In 1996, Ross Perot was the nominee of both the Reform Party (which yielded 27,464 votes) and the United Citizens Party then known as the [2] Patriot Party (36,913 votes).

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