The Virginia Green Party (which is affiliated with the national Green Party) is preparing to get on the 2008 ballot for president. Virginia is one of the eleven “bad” states in which an unqualified party can’t get on the ballot, except by means of a petition that lists a candidate. Fortunately, Virginia allows stand-ins. The Green Party won’t know who its presidential candidate will be until its national convention, July 10-13, in Chicago. So the Virginia Green Party will list Jared Ball as its presidential candidate. If he is not nominated in Chicago in July, he will resign and the state party will be permitted to substitute the actual candidate.
The Virginia State Board of Elections has been very cooperative regarding matters like this over the years. Virginia is not that easy for 3rd parties at presidential election time, but I have to say that the staff at SBE are (at least in my experience) very professional, scrupulously fair, and as accommodating as the law allows them to be. I felt sorry for them when the Democratic Party of Virginia unleashed its circus at the SBE offices in Richmond on the day in 2004 when the Nader campaign tried to file their signatures.
I wish minor party activists in Virginia would ask their state legislators to introduce a bill for a procedure by which a group could transform itself into a qualified party. If 39 other states have that, why can’t Virginia? Such a bill did pass the Virginia House in 1997, but the Senate killed it.
Oops, I should have said 1998.
Richard, as you know, I’m all over that issue like white on rice. 😉
Thanks Richard for the correction on the year. That’s why we think of you as the Encyclopedia Richard Winger!
Seems like it would have been smarter to list Rep. Cynthia McKinney–as more people would be interested in signing that petition.
Actually it’s likely that fewer people would be interested, not more, based on her highly controversial & negative media profile. What you do is you just say something to the effect of “will you sign this petition to put the Green Party on the ballot next year” since most people you approach have never heard of any of the names you could put at the top of the petition, whether it’s Cynthia McKinney or anyone else. The few you encounter who will have heard of McKinney are very likely to have a negative opinion of her. Using Jared Ball or Kat Swift or someone like that who has no media profile whatsoever is a smart move.