Six presidential candidates have had their Minnesota petitions validated by the Secretary of State: the nominees of the Libertarian, Alliance, Socialist Workers, and Socialism & Liberation Parties; and two independent candidates, Kanye West and Brock Pierce.
In addition, the three qualified parties with presidential nominees are the Democratic-Farmer-Labor, Republican, and Legal Marijuana Now Parties. The Legal Marijuana Party nominee is Howie Hawkins, who in other states is the Green Party nominee. This post has been updated to include the Alliance Party.
Good to see Kanye West finally win another state. Wow it is shocking to see that the Green Party did not get their petition validated. Sure makes no difference as Howie Hawkins gets ballot access through Legal Marijuana Now Party. It would have still been better to have ballot access through the Greens since they have better name recognition.
Despite being a Green myself, I actually think this is a clever move by Howie and Angela. The Green Party does have better name recognition, yes, but it’s quite the double edged sword unfortunately after two decades of smears/lies and vote shaming by hyper partisan Democrats. Legalizing marijuana is an increasingly popular policy proposal that has been enacted in a number of states now. Their nomination by the Legal Marijuana Now Party emphasizes a major difference between Howie/Angela, and the GOP and Democrat tickets, that the latter two oppose legalization while Howie and Angela supports it. It is also in line with Howie’s plan to create as large a unified left-wing front as possible so as to take on both ruling parties.
I heard that a crew of petition circulators did go to Minnesota to gather signatures for the Green Party. Maybe they did not get enough valid signatures, or maybe something else went wrong. Lucky for the Greens that they were able to get Howie Hawkins on the ballot there under the Legal Marijuana Now Party banner.
The decline of the Independence Party(now Alliance Party) in MN is very sad to see.
The Green Party did petition for president in Minnesota, but did not submit the petition, because Minnesota doesn’t permit fusion for president. In order to accept the Legal Marijuana Now Party presidential nomination, Hawkins had to withhold the Green petition.
Correction. Their are two separate pro marijuana parties in mn. Both are qualified parties.
The Greens did submit their own petition and Hawkins will be listed as a Green. The SOS was still reviewing the Green and Independence-Alliance (Alliance Party) petitions when all the news articles came out showing Kanye had qualified.
My fear is with all the choices it will split the votes ensuring Trump will win again. Many People will vote for West just because he’s a celebrity. Is he qualified? I have never heard much about his platform in the news etc, just that he’s running. I do however remember him aggressively endorsing Trump, I hate to say it but for every independents vote = a vote for Trump. And as you can tell I feel that would be detrimental for our country and the constitution. Sorry but that is my opinion