• The party can't legitimately claim to be saving democracy while aggressively limiting voter choice

ALBANY — Democrats tell us the coming election is about saving democracy. If Joe Biden loses, the claim goes, this little experiment of ours may end.

"Whether democracy is still America's sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time," Biden said recently. "And it's what the 2024 election is all about."

• The recent consolidation of primaries in June means that petition-gathering season now falls in the middle of upstate’s elongated winter.

ALBANY, NY — Democrats have made some of the most sweeping reforms to New York’s election law in over a century since they assumed sole control of Albany in 2019. Changes like early voting, eased registration deadlines, and new rules for voting by mail have made it easier than ever to cast a vote.

• May Threaten Third Party Ballot Access in New York State

• Libertarian and Green Parties contend that a two-thirds supermajority in New York legislature and no ballot access for third parties makes it a one-party state.

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a decision to deny the writ of certiorari petition for an appeal brought forth by the Libertarian Party of New York and the Green Party of New York, concluding their legal battle over New York State’s ballot access thresholds. The petition, which was filed on March 13, 2023, sought to challenge the increase in ballot access requirements implemented in 2020.

The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear a challenge to New York's 2020 election reform laws that raised the threshold for third political parties to appear on the ballot.

In the past, to achieve statewide ballot status, minor political parties needed to earn 50,000 votes for their candidates in the previous election. In other words, they needed 50,000 votes to qualify for the ballot every four years – rules that have been in place for decades. The law passed three years ago now requires that minor parties garner 130,000 votes or 2% of votes cast. Failure to do so would mean removal from the ballot in the next cycle. In addition, they demand that qualifications occur every two years, rather than four, at the gubernatorial and presidential elections.

“The hardest thing I’ve ever seen the Democrats fight for is to keep a disabled Marine combat veteran off the ballot.”

– Matthew Hoh, Green Party candidate for U.S. Senator in North Carolina

The last week of June 2022 brought more strikes against an American democracy already in deep crisis. Democrats blocked access to the ballot for the Green Party of North Carolina and seven independent gubernatorial tickets in New York.

The NY Board of Elections has ruled that petitions filed by all of the minor political parties to get candidates on the ballot in November were invalid and failed to meet the very high threshhold of 45,000 valid sigatures statewide.

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor and former Green Party candidate for President; Larry Sharpe, the Libertarian Party for Governor and former Libertarian Party candidate for vice-president; and Harry Wilson, who recently lost the republican primary for Governor, was placed on the ballot by the UniteNY party. It is unclear whether Wilson would have accepted the UniteNY party line, but the point was moot as Unite joined with the Green, Libertarian, Freedom, and New Visions candidates in being denied ballot access this year.

The Green Party of New York gubernatorial ticket expressed its outrage today at the ballot access process for independent candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor in New York.

On Monday, June 27, the state Board of Elections ruled as invalid the independent nominating petitions of the Green Party and all four other gubernatorial candidates who are not already on the ballot as the Democratic and Republican candidates on the grounds of insufficient signatures. The other petitions were for the Libertarian, Unite, Freedom, and New Visions candidates.

The Democrats have challenged all the independent petitions for Governor after ramming through changes to the law to make it largely impossible for independent third parties to get on the ballot for statewide office. Howie Hawkins, the Green Party nominee for Governor, discusses the Democrats' ongoing efforts to suppress electoral challenges in New York.

June 9, 2022 – The Green Party of New York gubernatorial ticket decried today the objections filed by Democrats against their independent nominating petition.

“We are not surprised that the objections were filed by Nassau County minions of the chair of the Nassau County and State Democratic committees, Jay Jacobs. Jacobs has been on a crusade to wipe the Green Party off of New York ballots. I don’t want to hear anymore hypocritical crocodile tears from anti-democratic Democrats like Jacobs about Republican attacks on voting rights. Party suppression is a form of voter suppression. It’s what authoritarian governments do. It is what Jacobs and the Democratic Party are doing,” said Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor.

Former Governor Cuomo and the state Democrats have passed laws to prevent independent third party candidates from running for statewide office, among the hardest ballot access laws in the world. Still, the Green Party of New York is mounting a challenge. We talk with public health care worker Gloria Mattera, the Green Party nominee for Lieutenant Governor.

Hudson Mohawk Magazine, Media Sanctuary
Troy, NY
June 1, 2022