On June 22, the Nevada Secretary of State told the Green Party that its party petition only had 4,784 valid signatures. It needed 5,431.
The Nevada deadline for that petition was June 2. But back in 1992, a U.S. District Court enjoined the Nevada deadline for minor parties and independent candidates, which that year was June 10. That case was Fulani v Lau. The legislature afterwards moved the deadline to July, but over the years forgot why it had done that, and moved the deadline back to April, and then last year moved it to June 2.
Nevada is in the Ninth Circult, and in 2008 the Ninth Circuit struck down Arizona’s June 10 petition deadline for independent candidates, in Nader v Brewer, which makes the 1992 Nevada Fulani precedent even stronger now than it was back in 1992.
Richard can you give us a update on how many states the Libs and Greens are now on the ballot ?
Any word on why the number of signatures accepted was so low? They turned in over 8,300 signatures, IIRC, which would mean over 40% of them were rejected.
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Lots of people in Nevada are not registered to vote (more so than most states), and there are a higher percent of people in Nevada who move frequently as compared to a lot of states, many of which do not know which address they put on the registration.
I actually warned somebody in the Green Party about the validity in Nevada last year.
Part of it could also be how good a job the Green Party petition circulators did screening people prior to them signing.
Nevada is more difficult on validity than a lot of other states.
According to chatter in the Nevada Green Party’s Ballot Access Forum on Facebook, the problem was with the signatures collected by paid petitioners. According to one woman who is, from what I can tell, a member of Nevada’s Executive Committee, the petitions by Green volunteers were over 91% successful/validated by the Secretary of State’s office while those turned in by paid petitioners were only about 52% successful.
This is one reason why you have to watch who you hire when it comes to paid petitioners. The Libertarian Party has been burned by non-libertarian mercenary paid petitioners on multiple occasions.
I’m really conflicted about the role of the Green Party in this years election. A lot of the polls being conducted now include Clinton, Trump, Johnson, and Stein. But Johnson and Stein are two variations on “other” in the minds of most voters. I tend to support the Greens but Johnson consistently polls higher than Stein. If Stein we taken out of the mix, Johnson might be inching toward the 15% barrier. But he won’t get there in a four-way race. I’ll take a three-way race including Johnson over a two-way race. If the Greens are going to continue to mess things up like this it makes me just with polling companies weren’t taking them seriously.
Clay, I am optimistic about the two pending debates lawsuits.
Every election is NEW.
EQUAL ballot access tests for all candidates for the same office in the same area.
Richard
Thanks for the info.
Will do.
What’s the status on Nevada to date? It’s after July. What could a Nevadan friend do to help?
The most important element in this and which can help our elections be more fair and representative is for community organizers to have easy access to tools and resources to help them knock on doors, register voters, and build lists of their own neighbors which can be used to inform them about local and primary elections as well as petition opportunities. All political parties are lacking this basic but extremely important grassroots organizing system. Anyone who uses it will dramatically improve voter outreach and turnout.