Although the candidate has little chance of winning, a major party will normally make an effort to ensure it has its name on the ballot paper in every constituency.
The main purpose of fielding paper candidates is to maintain or improve the profile of a political party and, in two-party systems, to provide at least nominal opposition to a seemingly unassailable incumbent.
Another potential use for paper candidacy is to allow a candidate who wants off the ballot of another race to do so by running for something else, a race they cannot possibly win (such as Rick Lazio, who lost a Republican primary for New York Governor in 2010 but still had a third-party ballot line; in order to disqualify himself from the gubernatorial election Lazio was nominated for a judicial seat in the Bronx that was so heavily Democratic that he could not have possibly won if he wanted to, and he did not).
There are circumstances where a paper candidate can win an election, often when the opposing candidate is unexpectedly embroiled in scandal; for example, then-27-year-old American Chris Smith, who ran as a token opponent to New Jersey congressman Frank Thompson in 1978 and 1980, won the latter contest after Thompson was embroiled in the Abscam scandal.
[2] Another example is Michael Patrick Flanagan, a little-known Republican attorney who defeated longtime Democratic incumbent Dan Rostenkowski, the onetime powerful Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, in a heavily Democratic Chicago-based district after Rostenkowski was indicted on charges of mail fraud.
In such cases, parties will run paper candidates, but will usually endeavour to use the extra spending allowance afforded (at least to the extent that it may be permitted in the jurisdiction) to campaign in districts where they have a realistic chance of winning.
[6] After joining Reform UK in 2024, James McMurdock won South Basildon and East Thurrock in that year's general election after the party—without enough people to run for available seats—asked him to serve as a paper candidate.
[9][10] The SDLP were also accused of standing a "paper candidate," Mary Garrity, in Fermanagh and South Tyrone in 2017, in order to help Sinn Féin win the seat from the UUP.
This was epitomised in 1992 with Moosajee Bhamjee, Ireland's first Indian and first Muslim TD, who only stood in Clare because no one else in the local Labour party wanted to.
As in Great Britain, they most commonly exist to allow the main political parties to field candidates in as many constituencies as possible.
In such cases, paper candidates will usually run in districts where ideologically like-minded parties are seen to have little chance of winning to minimize the risk of any nominal support they might receive proving to be the decisive margin in a close local election under Canada's first-past-the-post electoral system.
[17][18] However, Brosseau successfully shook off the label by the time of the 2015 election, having become recognized as a hard-working MP who had built a significant base of popularity in her district.
In a more extreme example, in Alberta, candidates do not need to show up to talk to a returning officer, as long as someone on behalf of the party drops off the required paperwork and funds.