On April 19, members of the Green Party of New York began soliciting the 45,000 voters’ signatures they need to gather in 42 days by May 31 to place the party’s gubernatorial ticket of Howie Hawkins for governor and Gloria Mattera for lieutenant governor on the ballot. Thanks to Democratic legislators who tripled the signature and vote requirements for ballot access at the urging of then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo as part of the state budget package in April 2020, New York now has one of the most difficult independent nominating petition systems in the nation and the world.

ALBANY, NY – Have you seen the news? Howie Hawkins and Gloria Mattera, the team that won us our ballot line in 2010, are back!

They’re running as a ticket for Governor and Lieutenant Governor on a Green Ecosocialist Platform - and they need your help!

Quentin Rhoades, an attorney for the Montana Green Party, argues in a 2018 court hearing in Helena over whether the party's candidates should remain on the ballot. Photo by Thom Bridge

A federal judge in Helena has ruled that the Green Party will be on Montana ballots in 2022, following an appeals court ruling in November that nixed a portion of the state’s law setting out qualifications for minor parties.

In 38 years, there have been only eight successful attempts by minor parties or independent candidates to collect the tens of thousands of signatures required by Indiana law to guarantee a spot in state elections, according to a new lawsuit by the Indiana Green Party and Libertarian Party.

The lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, says minor parties and independents face "substantial or severe burdens" because of Indiana's "unconstitutional" rules governing how they can qualify for state races.

• Making Missouri Green Again!

The Missouri Green Party is hard at work "Making Missouri Green Again!" to regain ballot access for the Green Party in Missouri.

Check out our Ballot Access Petitioning Guide, then download the PDF Petition Form to start collecting signatures in your community!

Questions? Contact us here.

LAWRENCE, KS – The Kansas Green Party bill to reduce the number of signatures required for official party recognition has been introduced in the House Elections Committee as House Bill 2578! The next step for us to get our bill passed is to get a hearing on the bill and convince the committee to vote to pass the bill out of committee!

Passage of our Ballot Access Reform Bill will be a game-changer for the Kansas Green Party! After a successful petition drive, it will allow Kansas voters to register as Green and it will allow us to nominate our own candidates if we petition under the new law. We need your help to get our hearing and a favorable vote from the committee!

We all know that Maine is peculiar in all sorts of ways, so it should be no surprise that we are out on an island in terms of the way we allow access by political parties to our ballots:

“Maine’s statutory scheme is almost entirely unique in the nation,” says Oliver Hall, legal counsel for the Center for Competitive Democracy, “in that the only way to become a ballot-qualified party is to have enough enrolled members.” 

Specifically, you need to launch your political party and get to 10,000 members within two elections. Before recent legal revisions, it was even worse: You had to have 10,000 enrollees actually vote in that election! 

HELENA, MT — Part of a Montana election law that states how many signatures minor parties must gather for their candidates to appear on ballots is unconstitutional, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

The Montana Green Party in 2018 challenged the rules that require minor parties to gather signatures equal to at least 5 percent of the total votes cast for the winner in the most recent gubernatorial election in at least 34 of 100 state House districts.

Great news! This summer, Arkansas Greens achieved ballot access for the 2024 Green Party Presidential Ballot line. In states like New Mexico, Kansas, Nevada and North Carolina, brave Green volunteers are out petitioning — but we face an uphill battle: