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.

Raleigh, NC —  Today Matthew Hoh, presumptive North Carolina Green Party nominee for US Senate, blasted the decision by the North Carolina State Board of Elections (SBOE) to deny the Green Party’s ballot access petition.

“The NC State Board of Elections decision to deny the Green Party our rightfully earned place on the ballot is a corrupt, lawless, and blatantly partisan attack on democracy,” said Matthew Hoh. “It’s a slap in the face to the thousands of people who signed, to our grassroots organizers who worked tirelessly to collect thousands of signatures during an ongoing pandemic, and to everyone who believes in democracy itself.”

The State Board of Elections will meet later this week to determine whether to grant the North Carolina Green Party official recognition, a decision that could have significant implications for a closely watched U.S. Senate race.

Certification from the state board would enable registered North Carolina voters to affiliate with the Greens and it would allow Matthew Hoh to add his name to the ballot for this year's U.S. Senate race, a seat opened up by Republican Richard Burr's pending retirement at the end of what is his third term.

The North Carolina Green Party has received information that an organized Democratic Party group has the list of persons who signed the 2022 Green Party ballot access petition, and Democrats are phoning the signers and asking them to retract their signatures. It is too late for the Green Party to be adding any new signers. The counties have already checked the signatures and the Green Party has enough valid signatures. There is no provision in the North Carolina election code for signers to retract their signatures from a party petition.

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.

ALBANY, NY – The Green Party of New York filed nominating petitions for their candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor on Tuesday, saying that the Democrats’ failure to address critical issues in the 2022 state legislative session highlighted the need for an independent progressive alternative party in New York.

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.

Many are outraged at recent Republican laws enacted in many states that affect voting rights. But we all should be outraged at Democrats in New York who have enacted laws to undermine voting rights in our state.

These new rules ensure that only the elites in New York can run for office, that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers will be prevented from voting for whom they truly support, limiting our choice and therefore silencing our voice. Over 250,000 New Yorkers voted for alternatives parties in 2018. Ending achievable candidate access to the ballot, as well as voter access to the election process disenfranchises voters for alternative parties like those we represent, the Green Party and the Libertarian Party.

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.