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Green Party of the United States
gp.org
For Immediate Release:
Diana Brown, Co-Chair, Media
Committee, [email protected], 202-804-2758
Philena Farley, Co-Chair, Media
Committee, [email protected], 202-804-2758
Green Party Pushes for Ballot Access in Eight States - Says
Party Suppression Equals Voter Suppression
A key goal for the Green Party each
election cycle is for state green parties to gain or retain ballot
access, which ensures a line on the ballot for Green candidates for
upcoming elections. Having an ongoing ballot line means easier ballot
access, allowing state parties to focus their efforts on outreach
instead of having to petition for higher numbers of signatures and
meet other onerous requirements that smaller parties without ballot
access are required to fulfill.
The Green Party results this
November will largely determine how many Green candidates can appear
on the ballot in the next election cycle, and may also impact ballot
lines for the Green Party 2024 presidential nominee. The Green Party
currently has ballot lines for 2024 in 16 states and the District of
Columbia – and hopes to
gain additional lines this November. Because of restrictive ballot
access laws, other 2024 ballot lines can only be gained via
petitioning in 2023 and 2024.
Green Party Ballot Access Races in November
2022
The results of the races below will
determine whether the state green parties listed qualify for a ballot
line for 2024.
CONNECTICUT – 1% for any office gets ballot access for that
office through the next election (minor party status)
Twelve candidates are running for minor ballot status, ten of
which have ballot status for the Green Party based on the total in the
previous election
INDIANA – 2% for Secretary of State
David Wetterer for Secretary of State
(write-in)
MARYLAND – 1% for Governor
Nancy Wallace for Governor
MASSACHUSETTS – 3% for any statewide office
Gloria Caballero-Roca for Auditor and Juan
Sanchez for Secretary of State
MICHIGAN – top statewide vote-getter must get 1% of the
winning vote total from the most recent Secretary of State
election
Statewide candidates are Kevin Hogan/Destiny Clayton for
Governor/Lieutenant Governor, Larry Hutchinson for
Secretary of State, and Robin Laurain, Susan Odgers and Sherry A.
Wells for University Board positions
NEW YORK – 130,000 votes or 2%, whichever is greater, for
Governor
Howie Hawkins for Governor and Gloria
Mattera for Lieutenant Governor (write-in after the signature requirement for non-major party
candidates was raised from 15,000 to 45,000)
PENNSYLVANIA – ≈1% for any statewide office maintains
ballot line for special elections, prevents ballot line theft, and
provides for official party registration (minor party
status)
Christina ‘PK’ DiGiulio/Michael
Bagdes-Canning for Governor/Lieutenant Governor, and Richard Weiss for
U.S. Senate
WISCONSIN – 1% for any statewide office
Sharyl McFarland, Secretary of State
Significant Hurdles Restrict Ballot Access
The COVID-19 epidemic greatly restricted petition gathering
efforts over the last 2½
years. Combined with onerous petition
requirements and exclusion from debates and
polls over many election
cycles, these hurdles have unfairly restricted the Green Party from
fielding candidates - and as a result, have reduced voter
choice.
Party Suppression = Voter Suppression The Green Party believes that ballot access laws enacted by
Democrats and Republicans are often intentionally designed to make it
difficult for other parties to gain ballot status and challenge
two-party control. Most recently, in 2021, both the Democratic
Party-sponsored ‘For the People Act’ and the ‘Freedom to Vote Act’ (both passed the U.S. House, but not the
U.S. Senate) were specifically designed to make it extremely
difficult for Green
presidential nominees to even appear on the ballot in most of the
United States. Laws that keep parties off the ballot also keep voters
from the polls. Exit polling has shown that many people who vote for
Green Party candidates would not have voted for any other party
candidate.
Top Two in CA Reduces Voter Choice and Ballot
Access
Even in California where the
nation’s largest Green Party has had ballot status since 1992, it
still is difficult for Green candidates to appear on the ballot.
In 2012 - with a ‘yes’ campaign funded by large corporate
interests - California voters narrowly adopted Proposition 14, which
eliminates party primaries and instead places all candidates from all
parties (and independents) on the same primary ballot. Prop 14 also
made it substantially harder for minor party candidates to appear on
the primary ballot - a fact that was not shared in the official Title and Summary of the
measure when it appeared in the official voters guide.
Proposition 14 then
limits general election choices to only the top two finishers in the
primary, greatly limiting voter choice. As a result, Green U.S. House
candidate Michael Kerr is only the fifth California
Green to make it onto the
November ballot for state or federal office since the proposition went
into effect. The Green Party of California calls for the repeal of the Top Two law and replacing it with
legislative elections from multi-seat districts by proportional
representation and statewide single-seat office elected by
ranked-choice voting.
Green Proposals for Fair Ballot Access
The Green Party believes that
ballot access is a voters choice and voting rights issue - and that
party suppression via onerous ballot access laws is a form of voter
suppression. To remedy this, the Green Party’s platform calls for the
following:
- Eliminate all ballot access laws and rules that discriminate
against smaller parties and independents, and otherwise place undue
burden on the right of citizens to run for office – including high
filing fees and petition signature thresholds, and unreasonably short
qualification periods.
- Enact a
‘right to the ballot law’ establishing national readily achievable
baseline standards for state party and individual candidate ballot
access petitions. Include a party qualification option by voter
registration, for states that offer voter
registration-by-party.
- Establish national readily achievable baseline standards for
retaining ballot access by political parties. Include the opportunity
to retain ballot status via achievable percentages of the vote in any
statewide race, not just for governor or president and only require
this at a minimum of every four years.
Green Party of the United States
www.gp.org
202-804-2758
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