Since the Kentucky Secretary of State's office officially began asking county clerks to track the number of Libertarian voter registrations in 2006, via 31 KAR 4:150 Archived September 11, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.

[citation needed] Both Independents and political groups do not have automatic ballot access, meaning they must collect signatures on a petition for candidates that wish to run for office.

Kentucky's ballot access rules require a different minimum number of signatures based on the office being sought, ranging between 25 and 5,000.

Political organizations are those whose candidate for president received at least 2%, but less than 20%, of the popular vote in the state of Kentucky in the last general election.

A "political organization", the second tier in a three-tier system, grants that party ballot access, but denies them a state-operated primary.