The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a request from the Nevada Green Party to appear on the state’s ballot, thereby blocking its presidential nominee, Dr. Jill Stein, from being listed. The party was disqualified by the Nevada Supreme Court for submitting incorrect petition paperwork.
In a brief order on Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court wrote, “The application to vacate injunction presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied.”
The Nevada Green Party had originally submitted nearly 30,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot, which would have allowed the party to list its candidates, including Stein. Although the party was initially approved by the Secretary of State’s office, state Democrats soon challenged this approval. They argued that the party failed to collect the required number of valid signatures from each petition district and had also used an incorrect affidavit form intended for ballot initiatives, which lacked a required sworn registration statement.
A lower court judge initially dismissed the Nevada Democratic Party’s lawsuit, ruling that although the form was incorrect, it still complied with state law. However, the lawsuit was amended, and in September, the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s ruling in a 5-2 decision, ultimately declaring the signatures invalid. While the Court acknowledged that the forms were incorrectly recommended by the state, it noted the issue could have been avoided with more careful review.
In response, the Nevada Green Party sought emergency intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the state court’s decision violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantees of equal protection and due process, and that the party should not be penalized for following incorrect instructions.
Kudos for having almost twice the signatures BUT: How did they and their attorney miss this?
That Officials lie to one or are themselves ill-informed and will do things like ‘lose’ one’s signatures (so one e.g. copies them) is basic, so one’s attorney and one’s people check everything several times in developing ballot access. Better yet, have several independent attorneys and teams verifying.
Was the attorney a plant or the GP officials leading this? These things happen. Asking for a friend.
I agree with Richard Winger. As he has stated in Ballot Access News the Democrat Party is working very hard to keep alternative party candidates for president off the ballot in various states. How can we fight this?
The U.S. Supreme Court has not done anything helpful to ballot access since 1992. There is no coherent theory that justifies this behavior. The Constitution protects all voters, not just voters who want to vote for the Dem and Rep nominees. Every time a Dem or Rep presidential nominee makes a procedural mistake, election officials and courts excuse those errors and preserve ballot access for those candidates. Dems and Reps have missed deadlines for president in Indiana in 1988, in Texas in 2000, in Iowa in 1964, and probably other instances as well.
Nevada voters who want to vote for the Green Party for any office are not disenfranchised, because write-ins are not allowed.