By Angela Walker, October 23, 2020

Republicans spoil elections by suppressing the Democratic vote and the Black vote. They orchestrate voter roll purges, most notably in the 2000 election in Florida, and restrict the number of polling places in Black and Brown communities. The GOP encourages voter intimidation at polling places, which seems to be higher this year.

Democrats spoil elections by trying to suppress the Green vote, kicking us off the ballot, instead of embracing the proven nonpartisan solution to spoiled elections. The solution is replacing the Electoral College with a national popular vote using ranked choice voting.

We’re reaching out because we need your help to save the Green Party here in New York. 

Election Day is two weeks away. We’re asking Greens and Green allies to sign a pledge to vote for Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker. 

Why?

It's hard to overstate the effect of voter suppression. Every election, countless people are prevented from being able to cast their votes thanks to strict requirements, misinformation, and foul play.

As expected, we're seeing evidence of this foul play all over the country. There's no low that Trump's team won't stoop to which means it's up to all of us to stay alert and call out voter suppression when we see it.

The Green Party is hoping that a presidential ticket topped by New Yorker Howie Hawkins will help bring voters to the polls for their candidates up and down the ballot. We chatted with Peter LaVenia, Co-Chair of the New York State Green Party, about the party's future.

Members of the Green Party and supporters of Steve Greenfield's campaign for Congress in New York's 19th District will gather tonight at 7:00 p.m., outside the studios of WMHT in Troy, to protest the rescinding of Steve's invitation to take part in the debate. They will call upon the management of WAMC and WMHT, as well as candidates Kyle Van Der Water and Antonio Delgado, to allow Greenfield into the debate.

Video by Jon Flanders

• Join us in protesting Steve Greenfield's exclusion from tonight's CD-19 Debate!

• Open the debates to all ballot-qualified candidates!

Green Party congressional candidate Steve Greenfield has been barred from participating in tonights debate between Rep. Antonio Delgado and Republican challenger Kyle Van De Water.

The debate is being hosted by public television station WMHT and co-sponsored by public radio station WAMC and the Albany Times Union. Greenfield participated in the debates two years ago. Ask the sponsors why he's been excluded this year.

We're not going to sugar-coat it. We have less than three weeks to save the Green Party in New York State. Gov. Cuomo and the Democrats changed the law this year so that if we don’t get at least 150,000 votes, the Green Party will disappear from the ballot.

That means your vote for Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker is necessary to save your Green Party’s ballot line!

• Demands States to Dismantle Illegal Private Militias

Hawkins demanded that the FBI and DHS increase monitoring and prosecuting violence by racist terrorist groups and that state law enforcement agencies enforce state laws against illegal private militias. 

The Free and Equal Elections Foundation (FEEF) hosted its second independent open presidential debate of the year on October 8, an event slated as a rebuke to the presidential debate commission's debates, which have long lacked inclusion and substance.

"With the Commission on Presidential Debates reeling in from its poor stewardship of the debate process, today's cross-partisan debate is an opportunity for the nation to advance a much more meaningful political discourse, one that represents our deep yearnings for a more perfect union," said FEEF Co-Founder Christina Tobin during her opening introduction.

Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins was interview on October 9 about his offer to debate Biden. Hawkins said he's ready to debate both Donald Trump and Joe Biden but he's not sure they're ready to debate him.

Hawkins' News Release page includes a number of statements on the debates.