Colorado has a new minor political party this week after the Approval Voting Party surpassed 1,000 registered members, Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office said Wednesday.

The designation comes only a year after the party met requirements as a “qualified political organization,” which allows state residents to affiliate with the party when they register to vote. The new status allows the party to nominate candidates directly to the ballot instead of its members having to petition their way on.

The Approval Voting Party joins the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the American Constitution Party and the Unity Party as official minor political parties in Colorado, along with the state’s major political parties, the Republicans and Democrats.

As of 3 a.m. Tuesday, the Secretary of State’s Office counted 989 active Approval Voting Party members, plus 33 inactive members, making for 1,022 registered voters – or 2.6 hundredths of a percent of Colorado’s 3,910,380 registered voters.

“I’m encouraged that so many Colorado voters are selecting the Approval Voting Party when choosing their voter affiliation,” said party official Blake Huber, the party’s 2018 nominee for secretary of state, in a statement.

The party promotes use of the approval voting method of casting ballots, which lets voters select all the candidates they approve of in a given race, yielding results supporters contend better reflect the intentions of the electorate.

“Voters naturally want to choose more than one,” goes one of the party’s slogans.

“The concept of Approval Voting is to have elections where you don’t vote for the lesser of two evils,” Huber said. “Our party has gained recognition within a year of its existence because people are thirsting for a better voting method.”

While the method isn’t yet used in any government elections in Colorado, its supporters point to various organizations that have adopted the method in recent years, including the University of Colorado student government and the European Pirate Party, which uses approval voting to pick officers and nominate candidates.

The Center for Election Science says that approval voting is “categorically better” than instant runoff voting, also sometimes known as ranked-choice voting, which involves ranking choices on a ballot rather than simply picking all the ones a voter wants.

Fair Vote, another group devoted to electoral reform, however, has determined that approval voting is more prone to undesired outcomes – including the risk of spoilers affecting results and the majority’s favorite not winning – compared to its preferred method, ranked choice voting.

Bill Hammons, the founder and national chairman of the Unity Party, which achieved minor party status in Colorado in 2017, welcomed the Approval Voting Party and its organizers “to the club.”

Hammons added that he’d like to see the Unity Party incorporate support for approval voting into its national platform, calling the method a “desperately needed change in this country as lasting as it is monumental.”