Four states held Green Party presidential primaries on February 5. Arkansas and California state elections officials have incomplete, unofficial results, but Illinois and Massachusetts elections officials do not provide that service.
Arkansas: With only three-fourths of the counties reporting so far, the results are: uncommitted 273; Cynthia McKinney 116; Jared Ball 54; Kent Mesplay 48; Kat Swift 26. Ralph Nader was unable to have his name on this ballot since he hasn’t declared his candidacy. Arkansas Greens have severely criticized Pulaski County (the most populous county in the state) election administrators, for not making Green Party ballots available in many precincts.
California: with 96% of the precincts reporting (but many uncounted absentee and provisional ballots), the results are: Ralph Nader 16,835; Cynthia McKinney 7,124; Elaine Brown 1,259; Kat Swift 843; Kent Mesplay 564; Jesse Johnson 506; Jared Ball 444.
Illinois: check back for better results. The Chicago Tribune reports 1,446 for Cynthia McKinney, 438 for Howie Hawkins, 369 for Kent Mesplay, and 302 for Jared Ball. Thanks to Brian (commenter below) for these returns. As in Arkansas, Green Party activists are making a determined effort to alert the press in Illinois of election day problems. In Cook County and certain other counties, there were many precincts in which elections officials told voters that there is no Green Party primary ballot.
Massachusetts: check back for better results. Fragmentary returns suggest that the race between Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney is extremely close.
The Chicago Tribune reports the following results for Illinois (97% of precincts reporting):
Cynthia McKinney 1,446 votes 57%
Howie Hawkins 438 votes 17%
Kent Mesplay 369 votes 14%
Jared Ball 302 votes 12%
Green numbers are way down. The only hope the Green Party has is to elect Cynthia McKinney. Next, to Bush and Cheney, Nader is still the most hated man in America. He now appears to be trying to prevent the Green Party from achieving more than a handful of votes in the general election.
The California results are misleading. A Party can put anyone on the ballot without their consent in California. The problem the Green Party has is that everyone who would vote for Nader in November, voted for him yesterday. On the other hand, if they choose McKinney, millions of Democrats will cross over. It looks like a lot of Greens want to lose badly with Nader in November.
The problems in Illinois go beyond CooK County — I and at least one other person I know in another district were told there were no Green Party ballots at our Lake County polling places. When I insisted that the ballots were available, the people at my polling place finally found them, but they hadn’t offered them to anyone all day. (For more see: http://samizdatblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/illinois-primary-voting-irregularities.html )
Robert Archambeau
Ridiculous. Everyone who voted for McKinney voted for her yesterday. She won’t get any coverage – her two months of campaigning added up to exactly zero national coverage, and anything she gets will be about face-slapping. Nader got more national news in five minutes when he announced his exploratory committee than McKinney will in the next eight months.
McKinney is supported by a core of people in the Greens who want to have no shot at getting 5% of the national vote. Nader is the only logical choice – I’m not saying either are our best choices – but it depresses me that anyone believes Cynthia will get more votes than even David Cobb got in 2004.
The problem with California is that all the other Green candidates had to declare themselves and go through an internal Green process to be on the ballot and Nader did not. He was simply placed on the ballot w/out going through the same process. The California Greens need to walk their talk. Why are Greens even considering a candidate who has not declared by February?
“Ridiculous.”
Indeed, your comments are ridiculous.
McKinney has been doing a national tour and meetings people. But she is not seeking out the media, she is not organizing rallies, she is still really testing the waters to see if the Greens are a viable political vehicle (remains to be seen, imho), or is their grassroots energy to build a new broader progressive party. She will decide in a few weeks I imagine. Once she sees how the Dem nominatino is going to go. Nader is a well known gadfly to the MSM. If and when McKinney does decide to make a real run for it she will ratchet up her campaign and go public. And once the Dem leadership out maneuvers the Obamarama movement that will also shift public interest.
Nader is no choice. he is a negative scenario at this point. And I say this having contributed to and voted for Nader the last three presidential elections
Richard, it would be interesting to add to these primary accounts which states had open primaries, and in the closed primaries, which state parties allowed independents to vote in their primaries.
The reports I’ve read out of various precincts in Chicago regarding complete chaos & even outright sabotage when people asked for Green Party primary ballots are just plain disgusting. What kind of democracy is this? I realize Cook County is not exactly a historical exemplar of clean elections, but the Illinois election division apparently could have done a much better job of preparing precincts for this first 3rd party primary.
I hope the Illinois Green Party thoroughly documents each report and vigorously pursues a major complaint with the state elections division.
Actually, this wasn’t Illinois’ first presidential primary for a third party. The Libertarians had one in Illinois in 1996. The Libertarian Party became a ballot-qualified party for statewide office only, as a result of getting over 5% for Trustee of the University of Illinois. So Illinois had a presidential primary for the Libertarian Party in 1996, which Harry Browne won.
As to the 4 Green Party presidential primaries on February 5, independents could vote in them in Arkansas, Illinois and Massachusetts. In California the Green Party long ago voted not to let independents vote in its primary.
For the record here are some of the eary reports if Illinios irregularities according reports made to the Illionios Green Pary
————–
Illinois Green Party http://www.ilgp.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, FEBRUARY 5, 2008
CONTACT:
Patrick Kelly, ILGP Media Coordinator,
773-203-9631, media@ilgp.org
Phil Huckelberry, Chair, ILGP Government &
Elections Committee, 309-268-9974,
phil.huckelberry@ilgp.org
Tom Abram, Media Committee, 847-814-6947,
tabram@gmail.com
GREEN PARTY FIELDS NUMEROUS REPORTS OF VOTING
IRREGULARITIES IN CHICAGO, ELSEWHERE
Voters who hoped to participate in the Illinois’
first ever statewide Green Party primary are
receiving a very rude reception at many polling
places, especially in Chicago.
In the early hours of voting, Green Party
officials began receiving reports from frustrated
voters across the state who, in many cases, had
been told by pollworkers that there are no Green
Party ballots available at their polling places,
or that they had to vote on suspect electronic
voting machines, even while other parties use
paper ballots.
Some of the most outrageous incidents, however,
occurred across the wards of Chicago, where Green
Party ballots have been apparently tampered with
so they can’t be read and accepted by voting
machines, voters are given Democratic ballots
despite requesting Green ballots.
What follows are a few examples of reports. Check
http://www.ilgp.org for more reports as they are
received. More information will also be available
at the Green Party gathering tonight at Decima
Musa Restaurant, 1901 S. Loomis, Chicago (in
Pilsen).
1st WARD, 26th PRECINCT
A voter reports that all of the Green Party
ballots had been folded in half, causing them to
not feed through the machine properly. The
Republican and Democratic ballots were not
folded. Because his first ballot kept getting
rejected by the machine, the voter was asked by
pollworkers to fill out another Green Party
ballot, which also had been previously folded.
That ballot was not able to be read and was
rejected as well.
25th WARD, 8th PRECINCT
Pollworkers didn’t have any green ballots
available and were asking voters if they wanted a
Democratic or Republican ballot (but not Green
ballots).
25th WARD, 24th PRECINCT
A voter asked for a Green Party ballot three
times, and was given a Democratic paper ballot
each time. Finally, on the fourth time, the voter
was told only touch screen available for Greens.
31st WARD
Mary Ann Esler, Green Party Committeewoman in the
31st Ward, went in to vote in the Green Primary
this morning. The election judges refused to give
her a Green Party ballot. The Democratic Precinct
Captain, who was supervising the judges told them
that there were no ballots for the Green Primary
because the Green candidates were running
unopposed.
The confrontation ended when Mary found the
ballots hidden under some papers on the judge’s
table. The judges then went into a big huddle
with the Democratic Precinct Captain while Mary
marked her ballot.
35th WARD
Jeremy Karpen, live blogging from the 35th Ward
polling place, gives the following reports:
9:00am: After reporting an election judge for not
orally offering Green Party ballots (when he is
offering Dem and Rep) he was visited by the Board
of Elections and then he called me [an
expletive]. I asked him first to either list all
three ballots or simply ask people what ballot
they prefer, he said “I can if I want to.”
9:09am: Craig (my committeeman and roommate) was
just handed a “green” democratic ballot and got
all the way to the little voting booth before he
realized what had happened. Dear lord.
9:45am: The Election Judge, who now seems to have
an attitude, when asked if Green is a real party,
said “unfortunately” and stated that it “isn’t a
real party.” The person he was talking to was an
electioneer for Bradley’s campaign and not a
voter but there certainly were other voters in
the room.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=188400239&blogID=354973039
47th WARD
A voter was told there were no Green Party
ballots. During a call to report the incident,
the pollworkers told him that he could vote using
an electronic voting machine, but they did not
have any paper ballots available (although paper
ballots were available for the Republican and
Democratic parties).
50th WARD, 5th PRECINCT
Green committeeman reports that the election
judge is only offering Republican and Democratic
ballots.
COOK COUNTY, NORTHBROOK
An election judge reports that judges were
instructed to keep a tally of Green voters on a
tally sheet that numbers up to 50. There is no
such tally for the Democrats and Republicans.
COOK COUNTY, NORTHFIELD TOWNSHIP, 44th PRECINCT
A voter writes: “At approximately 11:30 am, at
the polling place at 74 Park Drive, Glenview,
Green Party ballots were still in shrink wrap, in
the box, in the cabinet. Officials at the desk
were indignant about my disappointment, and
challenged me to “have credentials” in order to
register my complaint.
DUPAGE COUNTY, MILTON TOWNSHIP, 28th PRECINCT
A pollwatcher reports that and election judge
asks voter “which parties’ primary ballot do you
want?” The voter seemed confused by the question
and the judge clarified by stating “Republican or
Democrat”. The pollwatcher immediately
interjected and corrected the judge and asked her
to please state all three parties in the primary
from now on.
DUPAGE COUNTY, MILTON TOWNSHIP, 44th PRECINCT
A voter writes: “A judge repeatedly tried to give
me a Democratic ballot, which I refused. The
Green ballots were still wrapped up and semi-out
of sight. As I approached the tables, I could
hear only “Republican or Democrat?” over and
over.
JACKSON COUNTY, MURPHYSBORO, 12th PRECINCT
A voter writes: “As I was leaving, the head lady
was making a call about getting more Green
ballots because they had only been sent three and
at 7:30a they had already used 2 of them and she
was worried about a run on Green voters.”
MORE REPORTS AVAILABLE ON ILGP.ORG AS THEY COME
IN.
Ditto with the Peace and Freedom Party of California (only Party registrants could vote in the primary). I voted for Ralph Nader.
Alex wrote:
The California results are misleading. A Party can put anyone on the ballot without their consent in California. The problem the Green Party has is that everyone who would vote for Nader in November, voted for him yesterday. On the other hand, if they choose McKinney, millions of Democrats will cross over. It looks like a lot of Greens want to lose badly with Nader in November.
My response:
Ralph Nader had no objection to his name being placed on the Peace and Freedom Party ballot; my guess is that he had no objection to his name being placed on the Green Party ballot either.
It does appear that Mr. Nader has won both the Green and Peace and Freedom Party primaries in the Golden State. That is wonderful news! Whether his name will be on the ballot in November is another question. You can bet that if Senator Barack Obama does not win the Democratic Party nomination, the “third-party” vote will go way up (all over the country). If Mr. Nader is not a candidate in the general election, the establishment wing (Johnson-Humphrey-Muskie-Carter-Mondale-Clinton-Clinton) of the Donkey Party will have to find someone else to blame when the Party goes down in flames (assuming that Senator Hillary Clinon, then, would be the nominee).
For some strange reason, there seems to be a lot of Democrats reading these pages lately, so: “A word to the wise,” as the old saying goes!
McKinney will get more media coverage than Nader. ABC has a reporter who’s sole job is to follow the McKinney campaign. It was announced last night in their Super Tuesday coverage.
While all the pundits are so obsessed with the “female vs. Black” thing, she’s bound to grab their attention as someone who’s “Both”.
She’s been in national coverage for years for all her battles in Congress with Bush & Co., and the Demo-blicans.
She has little negative press compared with Nader, who is hated by mostly everybody. I agree that Nader is nothing but a “negative scenario”. He’s just BAGGAGE and he’s gotta go.
She’s everything the ‘Other Two’ are not. Not only is she Black and female, she has more experience in Congress than Clinton and Obama put together. She knows how to deal with Demo-blicans because she’s dealt with them, and gone up against them, for years. She knows all their tricks.
McKinney is our Golden Opportunity to be IN this race, instead of “next to” it. We couldn’t get a better candidate if we had spent a month at a mountain retreat and dreamed up the “perfect candidate.”
McKinney is not “testing the waters”, she’s been attempting to run all out for president for the past four months – and outside of the Green Party, no one seems to care much.
Nader got more press in 24 hours of announcing an exploratory committee than McKinney got in the past four of actually campaigning.
How can you run for president by not seeking out media? Not holding rallies? The key to winning votes is for people to actually realize that you’re running.
If Cynthia McKinney is such a perfect candidate, how is it that she was destroyed by Nader in CA? How is it that she was destroyed by “Uncommitted” in AR?
Based on the campaign she’s running where she doesn’t seek any actual attention for her campaign and hangs up up the attention she does get, how can she be even a marginal candidate for the Greens?
Cynthia can’t run for president if she only has coverage in lefty blogs and on Democracy Now!. A single ABC reporter – who as far as I can tell still hasn’t gotten her coverage – can’t be compared to Ralph already being interviewed on CNN multiple times and getting press in the NY Times, NY Post, Washington Post, FOX News, ABC News, CBS News, the Boston Globe, the Nation and countless other venues.
I’ve had McKinney on my Google Alerts for nearly a year and 90% of her alerts are green-themed blogs or reprints of them.
She may not be intentionally running a Dave Cobb style campaign, but the actual results speak differently. She’s under the radar of all but the Green Party itself.
Nader may get negative press and called a “spoiler” but Cynthia would get that negative PLUS the DC cop incident AND her way too cuddly relationship with the 9/11 Truthies.
not to worry.. hillary will become president sending many democrats back to the green party after 4 more years of iraq war. vice president Lieberman will go over real well too.
Mike G. You’re obviously a Nader support. Too bad Nader isn’t officially running for Pres candidate for the Greens or any other party. He’s not an official candidate for any public office, even dog-catcher.
Nader’s a dick swinging his white male privilege around, not bothering to adhere to any of the rules that all the other candidates were obliged to follow, like officially declaring one’s candidacy, filing formal letters of candidacy with the state Green parties, filling out the required forms and questionaires.
Oh, no, Not Nader. He’s above all that, he’s “special”, he’s exempt, he’s not even a member of the Green Party and never has been.
He said in his interview with Amy Goodman that the only reason he was running with the Green Party is because affiliation with A party, any party, makes it easier to obtain ballot access in many states. He also said that in those states where he can run without any party, he intends to do so. When he doesn’t need us, he’ll dump us.
I’ve seen the Illinois results in the comments here and several other places, but does anyone here have the MA results?
Cynthia McKinney will get far more votes in the general election than “safe state strategy — please do not vote for me!” David Cobb did. Count on it.
Hillary and Obama are corporate Democrats who need a push from Nader to remember the progressive side of Green. Hopefully, progressives will not cave as they did in 2004 while the Democrats fought Nader’s ballot access and your right to vote for him.
How will the delegates be assigned from the Green primaries. Are they proportional, winner-take-all or advisory?
in Tazewell county,Illinois the election judges were asking people if they wanted a democrat or Republican Ballot, I had to remind them there were 5 ballots,including the green party,and constitution Party in my district,I made a formal complaint to my County Clerk
I’m not affiliated with the Green Party at all but really can’t see why they would take Nader again. He’s run so many times he’s just a joke now. Sure he gets publicity by the networks. But it’s not the kind of publicity that would translate into votes. When I told my friends and co-workers that he wanted to run again, they just laughed or rolled their eyes upward. McKinney has her problems, but she is a legitimate candidate in that she at least held office before. And yes, Nader beat her in California. But at this stage, it’s just because of name recognition. Over the long haul, she’ll pull in more voters than Nader ever would since the press would give her better coverage. With Nader, the press might have been all over him when he announced his candidacy, but would soon ignore him since he has nothing new to say. It will be harder for the press to ignore McKinney in the long run, as long as she takes the race seriously, if only because she is a woman and black. If the Green Party picks McKinney, it shows their moving into the future. If they pick Nader, it shows they are living in the past.
Steve Z: You admit right off the bat that you’re not affiliated with the Green Party so you’re apparently not aware of how much support there is for Ralph Nader within the GP, far more than in 2004. There is also a faction that is very pro-McKinney and echoes some of your sentiments about Ralph, but my feeling based on what I see within the GP (I’m a member and have been for many years now) is that the nomination is Ralph’s if he wants it. I moderated the GP presidential candidates forum in Washington, D.C. last week and I can assure you that the larger-than-expected turnout was due to the fact that Ralph Nader spoke afterwards (to raise money for the GP’s ballot access efforts).
Incidentally, how familiar are your “friends and co-workers” with the Green Party, Nader’s past campaigns, 3rd party politics, ballot access issues, etc.?
I don’t have any dealbreaking problems with Cynthia McKinney and, in fact, admire & support her activism on behalf of communities that sorely need it (and I also am impressed with the people who have been speaking on her behalf at GP events), but the idea that she’ll get more votes than Nader would is bizarre. She is not anywhere near as well known, has significantly lower name recognition nationwide, and among those out in the general population who do know her, virtually all you will hear is ridicule of either the cop-slapping incident, her 9/11 “alternative theory” activism, or both. That is something the GP needs to think and strategize about should she be the nominee because it would make campaigning for her rather challenging. As I said, those aren’t dealbreakers for me if she’s the nominee, but they’re elements that cannot be ignored.
No one of any public repute has anything close to the stature Ralph Nader has in terms of ceaseless public advocacy on behalf of third party and independent candidates, ballot access, an end to the electoral college, etc. etc.. both during and in between election cycles, through education, public speaking, and thousands of major media appearances as well as numerous lawsuits. This is coming from someone with over thirty years of experience in 3rd party politics (i.e. me). Ralph has virtually singlehandedly put this subject on the map of American political discourse, and that is why only people who are clueless about these issues laugh when the subject of him running for president comes up.
Also, those who follow Nader in the media know that over the past couple of years he has urged several other people to run for president (Bill Moyers and Jim Hightower come to mind) but they’ve all declined. He’s said in interviews many times that the Democrats (or anybody else) is free to take all of his issues away from him; that there’s no proprietary ownership restriction on his ideas. Like Norman Thomas, Nader would LOVE to be made irrelevant by having his ideas implemented by others. He has indicated this time and again on talk shows and in question and answer sessions. But that’s not happening, and no other widely known public figure is stepping into the ring who will carry the same agenda.
I cannot believe the number of people in our party are being taken in by Cynthia McKinney. She’s not a green candidate–she’s an opportunist who lost credibility with her shenanigans in dealing with the media after she embarrassed her state of Georgia by causing a scene at a security checkpoint when she didn’t have her congressional pin on like she should have. She then took the media to task for “prolonging” this story and had the gall to tell a reporter that when she was not seated for an interview, she was “off the record”–even though she had stalked away from the reporter and had left her microphone on. Such a lack of professionalism and an excess of dogmatism won’t help the credibility of the Green Party. I’m embarrassed that the party is even considering her a viable candidate. She will do more harm than good!
David: You ask me how many of my friends and co-workers are familiar with Nader’s work? My answer is just what the media tells them. And that proves my point. Nobody is going to go out and bother to educate themselves on Nader. A person can run so many times before he just becomes a joke to the people outside of his party. Another example that comes to mind is Gus Hall and the Communist Party. When I was much younger, he used to be on every Presidential ballot in New York State without missing one. Someone would say “Hey, guess what? Gus Hall is running again!” And everyone would laugh and joke about him, and that is what Nader is turning into. After the initial publicity, the only publicity he will get is that he split the vote that helped Bush get elected. (I don’t believe that for a minute so don’t bother to argue that with me as that isn’t an issue here.)
So when I say that the Green Party is living in the past if they nominate Nader, I mean that nobody new is going to be drawn into the party to vote for him since there won’t be any positive press coverage. The only people that will vote for him are the ones that have done so in the past. People don’t want to educate themselves about the candidates by doing their own research. They want the media to tell them about the candidates. That’s why people like Biden never had a chance against Hillary. They were far more experienced and were willing to give concrete proposals rather than talk in vague generalities like she does. But the media never concentrated on them so the voters never knew about them. At least with McKinney, even if she does bring baggage in with her, she’ll get some serious press coverage. Yes, she slapped a cop. And yes, she is a 911 conspiratorialist, although I’m not sure how much that will hurt her as I’m surprised to still find people here and there who believe that the government had something to do with it. And these people aren’t “kooks”. That coverage will invariably bring in some new people to the Green Party which will help it to grow. The Green Party needs to move beyond Nader if it hopes to reach a wider audience.
Twice in the past few days, I attempted to enter the same (approximate) message in this section. For some reason, it did not take either time and I am not going to try again on this particular item.