PHILADELPHIA – With a 5-2 Democratic majority, the PA Supreme Court ruled on 9/17 that Green Party Presidential Candidate Howie Hawkins, would be taken off the PA ballot for the General Election. This overturned a previous ruling by the PA Commonwealth Court.

In response to this loss, by the Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA), Co-chair Alan Smith (Chester) lamented, "All the hard work we did, being forced to petition during a pandemic, risking our lives and the lives of others, over 30 volunteers painstakingly reviewing our petitions line by line, thousands of dollars spent in lawyers fees, and the courts still manage to kick two of our candidates off the ballot, one of them a queer, working class Black woman".

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• A dedicated page for stories on Covid-19 

• Stories about how the pandemic has affected ballot access 

PHILADELPHIA – On July 14, the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of PA, ruled against the Green Party’s request for a temporary waiver of some ballot access requirements. The Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA) Steering Committee is calling for volunteers and launching a two-week flurry of petition activity to place Green candidates on the ballot. The Green Party had sought relief from the Court before the August 3 deadline for nominating petitions, but the Court ruled that granting relief during a deadly global pandemic would “seriously and irreparably harm the State.”

• Libertarian, Green, and Constitution Party members request an injunction waiving the requirement to collect a specific number of signatures to qualify for election
  

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Leaders of the Libertarian Party, Green Party and Constitution Party issued a call to action for ballot access Thursday after filing a lawsuit in federal court requesting a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction eliminating the requirement to collect a specified number of signatures on nomination papers to qualify for the general election in November. The motion, filed May 14 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, names Governor Tom Wolf et al as defendants.

The Covid-19 health catastrophe and economic depression has made it clear to all who are willing believe their own experiences that the two governing parties are presiding over a failed state

With 4% of the world’s population, the US has 30% of the world’s Covid-19 infections and deaths.

When Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, a former Republican who left the party in July to become an independent, announced last weekend that he would not pursue the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination, the move removed a higher profile name from the top of its ticket.

Before Amash decided to forgo a run, a similar thing happened to the Green Party. Former Gov. Jesse Ventura, who became Minnesota's chief executive by running as a Reform Party candidate in the 1990 election, said at the end of April he was "testing the waters" for a possible bid for the minor party's nomination, only to announce a week and a half later that he would be sitting this one out.

• Human rights during the COVID-19 crisis

• Latest news from the Santa Clara County Green Party

San Jose, Ca – As California ramps up its testing capacity for COVID-19 and a portion of workers are allowed to return to work, let's not forget that over 3 million Californians - and currently about 100,000 Santa Clara County residents - remain without health insurance, the vast majority of whom are undocumented immigrants. Even though Santa Clara County is proposing initiatives to provide health coverage to those who can't afford it, many with coverage can't pay their medical bills and/or avoid going to the doctor or the hospital for fear of contracting the coronavirus. This situation hugely benefits for-profit health insurances at the expense of people's health and well-being.

BALTIMORE – Last night the Maryland Green Party filed a lawsuit in Federal Court against Governor Larry Hogan and State Board of Elections Administrator Linda Lamone in order to challenge the unconstitutional application of Maryland’s ballot access laws during the COVID-19 State of Emergency.

Since early March when we suspended our in-person petitioning efforts, we have been lobbying the State of Maryland for two demands: 1) allow electronic signature collection and 2) lower the signature threshold to account for the impossibility of petitioning during a global pandemic.

PHILADELPHIA – Many Pennsylvania Greens are aware that Jill Stein sued the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania following the 2016 election to reveal that voters could not demand a recount of voting machines that were unverifiable. The subsequent settlement, among other things, required a true paper ballot. Once the counties started purchasing the machines, Stein’s committee found that the Election Systems & Software ExpressVote XL (ES&SXL) did not provide a true paper ballot. She therefore reopened the settlement in November 2019. I was a plaintiff as well an observer in the courtroom in the reopening of the settlement. I also observed the mostly thankless role which Jill Stein had in doing what was right for the voters. Judge Paul S. Diamond released his opinion on April 29, and it was not favorable.

PHILADELPHIA – On May 15, the Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA) filed suit in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of PA, demanding relief from unconstitutional election laws which are impossible to meet under emergency COVID-19 measures declared by PA Governor Tom Wolf.

PA election rules require a minimum of 5,000 voter signatures for state-wide candidates to be awarded space on the ballot. This involves the effort of dozens of volunteers and hundreds of hours of labor to collect signatures in public before the early August deadline. Under Wolf’s stay-at-home order, volunteers will not be allowed to circulate in public, and there will be no public gatherings for them to attend.