The Nevada Democratic Party is suing to keep the Nevada Green Party off the 2024 ballot, claiming state Greens failed to collect enough valid signatures. The lawsuit was filed in the First Judicial Court of Nevada earlier this month.
Editorial note: The Nevada Green Party has collected enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, according to Nevada election officials as of Tuesday. However, as of this article, the lawsuit by the Nevada Democratic Party is still pending, with a hearing scheduled for later this month.
The lawsuit, reported on by the Daily Indy this past Friday and dated June 10, seeks to invalidate the Green Party’s efforts to secure a spot on the state’s general election ballot later this year. It claims the Nevada Green Party failed to gather enough valid signatures to qualify for ballot access, arguing that many of the signatures were either gathered before state Greens filed the necessary documentation or were collected through altered affidavits on petition forms that changed the county of the petition circulator.
The Nevada Democratic Party cites a limited number of signatures it received through a public records request as the basis for its claims, although the Daily Indy notes that those did not include a review of signatures submitted in Clark and Washoe counties.
The leadership of the Nevada Green Party has since pushed back, asserting that the petition was submitted correctly and in compliance with the rules. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has also criticized the lawsuit in a recent video, calling Nevada Democrats the “Anti-Democratic Party” and saying the lawsuit demonstrates the party’s inconsistency with its own claimed values.
According to a previous letter from the Nevada Secretary of State to county clerks earlier this month, the Nevada Green Party submitted 29,557 signatures to appear on the ballot, far exceeding the necessary 10,095 signatures across all four congressional districts needed to achieve ballot access.
The case now awaits further review by the Secretary of State’s office, which is currently reviewing the lawsuit and will determine if the Green Party can remain on the ballot for November.
Purchasing ballot access is not a good system for selecting candidates. Even if it’s dirt cheap, it’s still pay-to-play politics.
And sure, collecting a certain number of signatures also doesn’t prove you have sufficient support for your platform. But at least it is an indication that enough people are willing to support your candidacy. Most people who sign your petition don’t intend to vote for you, they just want to see more alternatives on the ballot.
Forking over even the most negligible amount of cash, on the other hand, does not even demonstrate that you convinced anyone besides yourself to want your name appearing on the ballot.
In that case, just let anyone and everyone on the ballot. Or better yet, have exclusively write-in voting.
A lot of this petitioning nonsense could be avoided if candidates had the option simply to pay a fee to get on the ballot, in place of submitting signatures. As it is, many candidates have to pay professional petitioners to get on the ballot. A state could instead use the money collected form fees to help pay for the election. A win-win.
Richard meant today.
See
https://ballot-access.org/2024/06/18/nevada-secretary-of-state-says-green-party-has-enough-valid-signatures/
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/green-party-qualifies-for-2024-ballot-in-nevada-dem-lawsuit-pending
Jordan, perhaps then you can clarify whether Richard meant May 18 or June 18, which is today. May 18 was a Saturday this year, so I think he must have meant today?
I saw the article Richard is referencing, which confirms that the Nevada Green Party submitted enough signatures. However, at least as of now, the lawsuit is still pending with a hearing scheduled for later this month.
Richard: yes, which is why the D are filing a lawsuit, correct? Or did you mean today? What did I misunderstand?
The greens draw primarily from people who might otherwise vote D or not vote. The option to vote further left is not usually available in most states. Where it is, they may vote that way if they can’t vote green, or D, or not vote. This year, many might otherwise vote Kennedy.
Whatever studies showed they draw from the right in the US are long outdated. Germany is a very different dynamics, and a very different green party, from the US.
Libertarians have indeed drawn in a split manner, but they have way too many problems of their own right now to get involved in something like this, LOL.
On Tuesday, May 18, the Nevada Secretary of State announced that the Green Party petition is valid.
This GOP/DEM delusion that LP Libertarians and Greens draw enormously from the right and left respectively has got to stop.
It’s been years now since studies were done showing the draw about equally and also from habitual non-voters. True, the Greens have drifted away from their libertarian foundations of promoting the Libertarian International Organization (LIO) libertarian socialist eco-community/-village model based on the US Bill of Rights (and implicit in the pre-2005 US LP Platform) so are attracting some very far-far-left (and some far-right) voters, but these are the people who vote for Mickey Mouse or write-in party of Socialist Liberation otherwise, not Democrat. They did an internal study in Germany where the Greens are well-established in the parliament and found the same thing, though a higher percentage of ‘otherwise non-voters’ and folks who think Hitler was a misunderstood nature-lover.
That said, ‘third parties’ activists often appreciate the ‘Streisand Effect’ benefits and free PR of such zany lawsuits. I hope the USLP files a friend-of-court brief and makes an issue/fundraise event of it.
As David Nolan once said, ‘Sue us, please!’