On November 2, the Green Party nominee for Saline County, Arkansas Collector was elected. This is a partisan race. The nominee, Joy Ballard, was the only candidate listed on the ballot. She received 19,131 votes. Various write-in candidates received, together, 8,484 votes. Saline County is the 8th most populous county in Arkansas, and is just west of Pulaski County, which contains Little Rock.
To not be challenged by at least one of the major parties for an office of this importance is indeed strange. Richard, do you know any of the details?
I would think even in a county as small as Saline County, surely someone of the “courthouse gang” would have run. Very unusual, but glad she won.
As I’ve written before, all 3rd parties need to put more emphasis on the local offices. From those elected as Sheriffs, County Clerks, School Board Members and County Commission members, can come electable state senate candidates or in some occassions, serious candidates for statewide office.
I most likely do not subscribe to all the Green Party philosophy, but my congratulations are in order on this “major” win.
The former collector had resigned after the March filing date for the May party primaries. There were several candidates who filed as write-in candidates, but Ballard discovered that she could still run as Green Party candidate and be on the ballot. She said that she didn’t agree with everything on the Green Party platform, nor that of the other parties. So maybe it is harder to run for office as an independent.
Looking at some election results for Arkansas counties, there is an item for “unopposed county candidates” who you may either vote “FOR” or abstain as a group. So it appears that it is quite normal to have unopposed candidates for county offices, especially for those that are solely administrative.
It get’s even more interesting. The reason the Green Party was able to nominate a candidate was because they had not been certified until after the ordinary filing deadlines.
Ballard was previously the administrative assistant to the Saline County Judge, a Republican, who is said to have supported her candidacy. And the chairman of the County Democratic Party had made inquiries to the Green Party also about becoming their “nominee”.
Richard, straighten out my confusion. I thought the Greens, as a political party, were coming off the ARkansas ballot because they didn’t meet the necessary thresholds a few years back. So if this is a partisan election, what “brand name” or political party was used? Thank you.
The South Super-state Parliament Circuit #6
Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee
http://www.usparliament.org
Vanessa Morley [Defender of the Republic], CR Carter [Libertarian/Republican], Kirk Joseph [Independent], George Morrison [Freedom], Millich Person [Info. Not Avail.], William Lee Mayers [Pot], Thorn [Pot], Steven C. Dobbs [Pot], C.L.Gammon [Liberty First], Josh Sasser [Independent], Wendy [Unsure], Robert Davenport [Pot], Lucy Star [Pot]
Kevin, the Arkansas Greens successfully petitioned this year. The party has now submitted successful petitions three times in a row (2006, 2008, 2010). As you know, getting these signatures is exhausting and expensive. Arkansas requires 10,000 signatures. The only other party in Arkansas history that has ever done a party petition was the Reform Party in 1996. Arkansas did not require any petitions for parties to get on the ballot until 1971.
Arkansas has separate, much easier procedures for minor parties to be on for President only.
Jim, thanks for that interesting pair of comments, fleshing out the details of how the Green Party ended up with the only ballot-listed nominee on the ballot for that office. Ironically, if the Arkansas legislature had passed the bill in 2009 to ease the vote test, then the Green Party would not have needed to petition in 2010 and it would have had its own 2010 primary, which means that it could not have had the ability to nominate people by convention after the primaries were over.
On Oct. 5th I spoke with Gary Ballard, husband of Joy Ballard. Gary was Joy’s Campaign manager
None of the major party candidates filed for this office by the deadline. The Democratic Party Incumbent decided to move on to another office after the filing deadline. As a minor party the Greens still had the option to put someone on the ballot. Remember they had to petition again to regain a ballot line and there was a court case.
Joy, a current administrative assistant who had been in that position for years was thinking about running as an independent, but when she heard that the Green party would have a ballot line she contacted them. They formed the Seline County Green Party.
She was the only ballot line candidate. The Republicans became incensed that the “Godless” Green Party had the only candidate on the ballot and have been vicious, trying every dirty trick in the book to reverse the situation, but without success. This is hard core bible belt country. There were six filed write-in candidates.
The office is partisan and has a two year term.
Do the Arkansas Republicans have any objective evidence that the Green Party is “godless?” I’ve never noticed atheism in the Green Party’s key values.
#8 The Benton Courier, the newspaper in the county seat of Saline County, had a number of articles about the race.
The former collector resigned in April to become director of the Arkansas Association of Counties. He had been the only candidate who had filed for the primary (May 18). Partisan candidates file for the primary during the first week in March, as do independent candidates, who then have until the 1st of May to complete their petition. Arkansas does not permit write-ins in primaries, and has no provision for replacing a party nominee. The articles at that time (April) explained that an interim official would be appointed, and that candidates would run as write-ins, and even noted that if no one filed as a write-in that the interim appointee would continue to serve. This might not be totally uncommon in Arkansas where the county coroner and surveyor are elected in partisan elections.
New parties are permitted to nominate by convention, so after the Green Party qualified at the end of June, various people realized that they could be nominated by them and appear on the ballot.