The smears prove how rotten politics has become.

Former Sen. Joe Lieberman says party attacks on the group prove that it’s a threat in 2024.

For over a decade, the organization I co-founded, No Labels, has stood for bipartisan solutions to our country’s problems and worked to bring Democrats and Republicans together. This election cycle, seeing the broad discontent with a rematch of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, No Labels decided to go to work to get on the ballot in all 50 states for a potential bipartisan unity ticket. This is an “insurance policy” for America, to broaden the choices for voters if that is necessary in 2024.

Abraham Lincoln created such a choice in America in 1860. Emmanuel Macron did it in France in 2017. Polls now show we are at a crossroads and, if the parties don’t wake up, as many as 60% of America’s voters would consider a moderate, independent choice.

This simple idea has gathered steam and grown into a remarkable movement. Hundreds of thousands of voters have signed our ballot access petitions or voiced their support in other ways. On Monday, we will unveil a book called Common Sense with a list of 30 policy ideas to unite a majority of Americans.

As our movement has grown, the political establishment has attempted to smear us with a bevy of false accusations, and now they are working to block our access to state ballots. To gin up fear, they have labeled us as a pro-Trump superPAC fueled by mysterious donors. They have said we’ll be a spoiler in the presidential race.

The truth is, we are a bipartisan group paving the way for a possible unity ticket that would draw equally from both sides and have a real shot at winning. The best way for the two parties to stop No Labels from running a bipartisan unity ticket next year is for them to come to the center in the policies they advocate and reach across party lines to address the everyday issues voters face. So far they have been unwilling to do so.

Our unity ticket cannot be compared to a Ralph Nader, who received 2.7% of the vote in 2000, or a Jill Stein at 1% in 2016, candidates who drew from one party but had no chance to win. A closer comparison is Ross Perot, who ran in the center in 1992. He drew equally from both sides, though Bill Clinton ultimately won.

The partisan groups trying to stop No Labels are now circulating a poll they took that, remarkably, disproves their own spoiler charges. It shows an unnamed No Labels candidate would draw 21% against Trump and Biden despite their universal name recognition. That’s within striking distance of the 34% needed to win and would qualify us for national TV debates.

In other words, No Labels isn’t a spoiler, we’re a legitimate competitor — and that’s exactly what the two parties are afraid of. While the Real Clear Politics poll average shows Biden and Trump within one point, these groups are telling everyone that Biden goes from up 4 points to down 1 point if No Labels runs a candidate. Those changes are within the margin of error and show a toss-up race before and after the entry of No Labels. And how do they know which voters would switch when our potential candidates have not been chosen and their poll has no names? They can’t. They are simply manipulating data to play on voter fears.

Let me also explode the idea that this a pro-Trump effort. No Labels has a 14-year bipartisan record. Its leaders: Ben Chavis, a well-known civil rights leader; Larry Hogan, former Governor of Maryland; and I have said repeatedly that we would never back an effort designed to elect Trump. In fact, we have pledged to take down the No Labels 2024 project if for any reason it looks like a spoiler.

As for charges that we keep our donors confidential, of course we do, because this is just a nonpartisan ballot effort. The donors would face harassment from the partisan groups; they have a right of confidentiality protected by the Constitution and the Supreme Court. If and when there are candidates and an actual presidential campaign, those donors will of course be disclosed.

The groups clamoring for disclosure of No Labels donors are being hypocritical. They are themselves dark money groups with no disclosure. And they are engaged now in actual partisan political activity on behalf of a candidate by trying to block our access to state ballots. As the old joke goes: If it weren’t for double standards, they would have no standards at all.

Our organization is led and run by our founder, Nancy Jacobson. This movement is her life’s work. She lives and breathes No Labels. Many people don’t see this because she prefers to be behind the scenes, and that confuses the political elites inside the beltway. A leader in Washington who isn’t inflating her own ego? Something nefarious must be going on! So they attack her and her husband personally, and allege that her husband is really running the effort even though he has no role in it and has his own day job. This is pure sexism and illustrates again what is so wrong with our two-party political system today: no limits, no civility and no trust.

No Labels is democracy at work, bringing citizens together in search of a more perfect union. It is an attempt to heal the fracture in our nation that we all feel. It is earnest and sensible, yet it is being attacked by some who are partisan, cynical and unprincipled.

Their attacks against us are not just against us, but against the millions of voters we speak for — voters who are sick of the zero-sum games and “us vs. them” and want a third choice in 2024. These voters deserve to be heard and represented. They deserve a say in 2024. No Labels is here to ensure they have it.

Joe Lieberman is founding chairman of No Labels and a former U.S. senator from Connecticut. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.