How hard is it to start a party in Germany? Literally anyone in the US can decide they're running for office independently or form their own party - the only hurdle is getting on the ballot, which usually takes a certain number of signatures, and which becomes a lot easier if you can spam the airwaves beforehand.

But how do you do that where parties don't get to choose/appoint a candidate? Give equal access to candidates themselves? What's the cutoff? Signatures? Who pays for the canvassing to get signatures? Polling? Who pays for the robocalls and advertising?

So this works better during a general election rather than in primaries. I mean would we give all original 12 Republican candidates the same time allotment as the three Dem candidates, what if an IND had only one candidate?