The Arizona Green Party has issued a warning to its supporters that several candidates collecting signatures to qualify for its 2026 primary are not involved with the organization, and that the party intends to make formal endorsements in the new year.
In a series of remarks this month, the party said it had become aware of multiple individuals petitioning under the Green Party label despite having no prior involvement with the organization. The party publicly identified Lisa Castillo, Risa Lombardo, and Duwayne Collier and said it does not recognize any of them as members or organizers within the Arizona Green Party.
Previously filed Candidate Statements of Interest indicate that Castillo and Lombardo are both seeking the Green Party’s gubernatorial nomination. Their filings place them in a primary races that also includes Carlos Melendez and William Pounds IV. Collier’s filing states that he is running for the Green Party’s nomination for secretary of state, an election in which he is currently the only listed Green candidate.
According to the party, individuals circulating petitions on behalf of the candidates have described them as “independents” rather than Green candidates. The party said this characterization is incorrect and encouraged voters who may have signed the petitions under that understanding to familiarize themselves with the process for withdrawing their signatures.
Independent Political Report was unable to identify any apparent campaign websites or active social media accounts for Castillo, Lombardo, or Collier, and could not locate public contact information through which to seek comment on the party’s remarks.
Under Arizona election law, once a party has statewide ballot status, any qualified candidate may file to run in that party’s primary and collect signatures from registered members of that party as well as unaffiliated voters to appear on the primary ballot. Specific required signature totals vary by office. Candidates who win their primary then advance to the general election ballot under that party’s label.
The Arizona Green Party, which most recently regained its ballot access in 2024, has previously encountered candidates seeking to use its ballot line without the party’s involvement or support. “Not all candidates listed as Green hold Green values or want to help build the Green Party,” the party said. “Over the years the Arizona Green Party has been subject to ‘sham candidates’ who try to use our ballot line for their own purposes.”
In its statement, the party referenced a report from the 2010 election cycle detailing how a Republican operative recruited individuals to run as Green candidates while openly acknowledging that their candidacies could draw votes away from Democratic nominees. That episode led the Arizona Democratic Party to file a complaint in state court, while the Green Party pursued a federal lawsuit shortly after seeking to block the candidates from appearing on the general election ballot.
A federal judge rejected the Green Party’s challenge, finding that the candidates had met the requirements under state election law. Meanwhile, a state court judge agreed with the Democratic Party that the candidates had been recruited for partisan purposes but declined to remove them from the ballot because they had otherwise legally qualified.
The party had also expressed similar concerns in 2024 that candidates for its U.S. Senate primary were seeking to take advantage of its ballot line.
The Arizona Green Party said it plans to hold a meeting after the start of the new year to formally endorse candidates it supports for the 2026 election cycle, though it has not yet announced a date.
Yes, SocraticGadfly—my record speaks for itself. Backing a Gaza blockade-breaker, Cynthia McKinney, for VP in *2020*, when it actually mattered, has aged like a well-kept vintage wine. Your decision to hitch yourself to perennial loser Howie Hawkins, and to retreat into performative cries of “antisemitism” from the safety of a keyboard, has aged exactly as expected, like milk: sour, curdled, and forgotten.
In conbecticut ballot retention is by office only. If a candidate gets at least 1% of the vote for any office a political party does not have to petition to place a candidate on the ballot in the next election where that office is up, but candidates for any office where a candidate from that party did not get at least 1% of the vote still have to mandatory petition requirements to get on the ballot.
The petition-gathering process in Arizona is so onerous for small parties since the Republicans in the state legislature and a Republican governor raised the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot. There have been almost no Libertarian candidates since the change happened. I doubt any of these Green hopefuls will get on the primary ballot because they are unlikely to achieve the requisite number of signatures they need. Of course, the solution for all political parties to avoid what they consider sham candidates winning their primaries is to run someone with full party support against them.
@Richard: Sadly, Texas Greens are playing cutesie of some sort. Late December, a couple of weeks after Texas’ candidacy window closed, the party said it had 14 candidates — but didn’t name who they were and for what positions they were running. Instead, it had a would-be cutesie “stand by for news” comment.
Ten days into January, it’s still not named anybody.
But. yet, Aridzona Greens still recognize Pounds as a party member, despite his history? https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/04/green-party-nutter-william-pounds-dives.html
The Arizona Green Party ought to talk to legislators about a bill that would let small qualified parties nominate by convention. 17 other states let small qualified parties nominate by convention: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.