The Democratic Party often rightfully condemns Republicans for suppressing votes at the ballot box, but they are guilty of suppressing voters’ choices by filing frivolous lawsuits to prevent independent and third-party candidates from being on the ballot.

“The single biggest threat that helps put Trump back in the White House is third-party candidates …” said Joe Trippi in an NBC News report. The Party accurately accuses Trump of being an existential threat to our “democracy,” but it is too.

Clarion Ledger
By Getty Israel
September 10, 2024

In a competitive democracy Americans would have equal access to diverse political candidates from all political parties. But the party that purportedly stands firmly against Republican fascism launched a national legal campaign to ensure that Americans have only two choices on the November ballot for president: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, both of whom are controlled by corporate interests.

The David vs. Goliath legal assault is designed to keep their political rivals, Cornel West and Jill Stein, off the ballot but also to cause them to use their limited campaign dollars in the courtroom, forcing them to eventually drop out of the race, hence, Robert Kennedy.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge filed by the Democratic Party seeking to remove Stein from the ballot. Montana Democrats are suing to block the Green Party from Montana’s U.S. Senate race. In Washington State, the Democratic Party planned to file an appeal of the secretary of state’s determination that Kennedy qualified for the November ballot.

The Nevada State Democratic Party has sued the Nevada secretary of state and the Nevada Green Party to keep the Green Party off the ballot. Although the Nevada secretary of state’s office confirmed the Green Party had collected enough signatures to be on the ballot, that did not stop the Nevada Democratic Party from filing a lawsuit challenging the signatures.

The Nevada Democratic Party also sued to disqualify former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently concluded his campaign.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats were successful in kicking the Party for Socialism and Liberation off the ballot. Responding to a Democratic Party challenge in Georgia, a judge recently ordered that all four candidates be kept off the Georgia ballot.

In North Carolina, a Democratic allied group targeted both RFK Jr. and West. Recently, a U.S. District judge ordered the Democratic Party to pay the legal fees accrued by the Green Party of North Carolina regarding a frivolous lawsuit it filed in 2022.

Third party and independent candidates have an inherent uphill battle because billionaires and corporate donors do not fund them. They are not allowed to participate in debates that would expose millions of Americans to them because they are banned by corporate owned media organizations, which earns billions in advertising dollars from the two major parties and often hire their operatives after campaigns and political careers have ended.

Democrats have long blamed their presidential losses on these candidates, but they exist to challenge the status quo and to fill the huge policy vacuum left by the two major parties. Instead of scapegoating and denying them equal access to state ballots, the Democratic Party should welcome the challenge, publicly debate the policy issues, and then allow Americans to have the final word.  

Americans have the right to hear and the ability to discern the policy positions of all political candidates. Accordingly, if Harris loses in November, it will not be due to the candidacies of Stein or West, but more likely her ongoing obsessive and illegal support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinian mothers and children.

She and her team have made a calculated decision that the greatest moral issue of our time will not be on the ballot, but I assure you it will be. Therefore, if she is willing to sacrifice her candidacy for Netanyahu and the rogue, repressive colony known as Israel, so be it.