Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Could Cornel West Help the Greens Win Ballot Access in 50 States?
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
21 Jun 2023
Could Cornel West Help the Greens Win Ballot Access in 50 States?

Dr. Cornel West is a candidate for the Green Party’s 2024 nomination.  I spoke to ballot access expert Richard Winger, who thinks that if he wins, the Greens might qualify for the ballot in all 50 states, though Democrats will do their best to stop them.

ANN GARRISON: Richard, do you think the Green Party might finally qualify in all 50 states with as high profile and greatly admired a candidate as Dr. Cornel West? I’m going to use 2016 as a reference for what’s possible because Greens got on the ballot in 44 states that year, when they ran Dr. Jill Stein, but only on 30 in 2020, when they ran Howie Hawkins.

RICHARD WINGER: It's possible that they could get on in all 50 states in 2024. The biggest barrier is New York. If they can conquer New York, I think they can get on in all the other states.

AG: Weren't they on the ballot in New York in 2016?

RW: Yes. And 2020. But then Governor Cuomo told the legislature he wanted to make ballot access a lot more difficult. And he put that in the budget bill, so the legislature had to pass it.

So now it's very ironic, but for the first time, in 2024, New York might be the only state in the whole country without a single minor party or independent candidate on the ballot for president. And New York has such a strong tradition of third parties.

AG: Why did Governor Cuomo do that?

RW: Because he was mad at the Working Families Party (WFP).

AG: Why was that?

RW: Because the WFP endorsed Cynthia Nixon in the Democratic primary for Governor in 2018. She didn't win her primary against Cuomo, but he held a grudge.

AG: So what are the challenges of getting on now in New York, which has 29 electoral votes?

RW: Well, we have two lawsuits pending in New York. And I have some hope that the law can be improved before the 2024 election.

AG: Lawsuits by the Green Party and who else?

RW: One of the lawsuits has nothing to do with any of these independent parties. It was filed by the mayor of Buffalo, New York, in 2021. He was running for re-election, and he lost the Democratic primary, but in New York, you could lose the primary and still be a third party or independent candidate in the general election.

So he turned in petitions to do that. But the legislature had also just bumped up the filing deadline from August to May, so he missed it. But he has a very strong lawsuit against that. A ruling on it should come out any day now, and if he wins it, I think the New York legislature will be forced to rewrite the ballot access laws, and they might do more than just fix the deadline.

AG: So that would be good for the Green Party.

RW: If he wins, it’ll be good for all third parties.

AG: Okay, and what about the Green Party legal action?

RW: That’s a Green Party and Libertarian Party lawsuit. It's less likely to succeed, but it might. It's pending in the Supreme Court because it lost in the lower courts.

AG: And what's the legal argument there?

RW: That the requirements the New York legislature created in 2020 are just too unfairly burdensome. They tripled the number of signatures and tripled the distribution requirements—meaning you have to get a whole bunch of signatures in half the congressional districts.

And they didn’t even extend the petitioning period. The signatures you have to gather went from 15,000 to 45,000, and you have to do it in six weeks.

AG: Forty-five thousand signatures in six weeks?

RW: Yes. That’s one of the shortest petitioning windows in the country.

AG: Well, the Green Party already has access in the other three most populous states, California, Texas, and Florida, which have 55, 38, and 29 electoral votes, respectively, and those are all secure.

RW: Oh, sure. They're perfectly safe in all three of those states.

AG: In 2016, the three states that the Green Party failed to qualify in were Nevada, South Dakota, and Oklahoma, and they qualified only for write-in status in Georgia, North Carolina, and Indiana. Are those states particularly difficult to qualify in?

RW: No, except for Indiana, which requires 36,944 signatures. In Indiana the Green Party also has a very strong lawsuit pending to make the requirements less onerous. In North Carolina, the Green Party is on the ballot right now. And South Dakota eased its requirements in 2016. Now it's only 3502 signatures. Oklahoma also eased its law, but it's still pretty mean.

Here's what Oklahoma did. They said, “Oh, you can get on for president without a petition at all. But you have to pay a filing fee of $35,000. Or gather 35,592 signatures.” It would be thrilling though, if any left party got on the ballot in Oklahoma for president because no left party has been on the ballot there since 1936, way longer than in any other state. Ralph Nader never got on in Oklahoma; they didn't have the filing fee option when he ran. Even Henry Wallace couldn't get on in Oklahoma.

AG: And what about Nevada?

RW: Well, it's hard, but doable. It takes 10,096 signatures.

AG: What about Georgia, where the party only had write-in status in 2016?

RW: Jill Stein didn't get on in Georgia in 2016, even though the petition requirement was only 7500 signatures; ditto with Howie Hawkins's run in 2020. The requirement had been lowered due to a court case that the Green Party won in 2013. Before their court victory, the requirement had been so high that Greens hadn't even seriously tried to qualify in Georgia. So after the requirement was lowered in 2013, the Georgia Greens didn't have any real experience trying to petition.

AG: What about Montana, which is represented as a gray area on the Greens' 2024 ballot access map, as though its status is uncertain? In 2018 and 2020, Montana Democrats mounted successful challenges to Green Party signatures on ballot access petitions. In both years, they contacted people who had signed the Green Party petitions and asked them to retract their signatures.

RW: Then the Green Party won a ballot access case against Montana in the 9th Circuit in 2022, and was therefore on the ballot that year. But there were no statewide races up in Montana that year, and the law is unclear on whether a party should lose its status in a year with no statewide races up. Montana’s Secretary of State has declined to rule on whether the Green Party is still on the ballot.

The Montana Green Party is reorganizing under the leadership of Steve Kelly.  When they feel their organization is in good shape they will demand that the Secretary of State issue a ruling, and if the Secretary of State doesn't put them on, they will sue.

AG: The liberal Democratic press that covered Dr. West’s announcement almost uniformly reported the same story—that he could cost President Biden the election. Is the Democratic Party working to keep Greens off the ballot?

RW: Democratic legislatures are not currently trying to make it more difficult to get on for president, though they certainly have in the past. Earlier this year Democratic majorities in New Mexico and Minnesota made ballot access more difficult but for offices other than president.

There are court precedents that say due process does not permit states to make the ballot access laws harder right in the middle of the election season, although “election season” is not precisely defined anywhere. They have to make the restrictive laws take effect before the next election season begins. So generally the Greens are safe from hostile changes for the remainder of this year and in 2024. Most state legislatures have gone home for the year anyway.

AG: But Democrats use more than state laws to attack third party and independent candidates. Tell us about that.

RW: The Democratic Party has tried to keep left parties and independent candidates off the ballot in many elections in the past, from 1936 to 2020, although they haven't done it every time. They do it when they're scared.

They try to keep Green and independent candidates off the ballot when they’re scared they might lose a close race. They were scared of Nader’s run as an independent in 2004, after what happened in 2000. And they were scared of Howie Hawkins run as a Green in 2020 because they had never imagined Hillary could lose to Trump when Jill Stein was on the ballot in 2016. And they are likely to be really scared of Dr. Cornel West, given that Biden and Trump are now nearly tied in the polls.

AG: What did they do when Ralph Nader was running as an independent in 2004?

RW: In 2004, Democrats challenged signatures and addresses on Ralph Nader’s ballot access petitions in over half the states. Most of the challenges failed, but fighting them was time consuming and expensive for the Nader campaign. 

AG: I remember speaking to lawyers who went to court to fight those challenges. 

RW: Those challenges are outlined in a book "Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party System" written by Theresa Amato, Nader's campaign manager that year.

AG: And in 2020, when Howie Hawkins was running?

RW: In 2020, Democrats challenged Howie Hawkins' ballot status in Montana, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In Montana, they persuaded enough voters who had signed the Green Party petition to remove their names, so the party was removed even though the state had already held a primary for it that year.  

In Wisconsin, Democrats successfully challenged the Hawkins petitions on the grounds that his vice-presidential running mate, Angela Walker, had moved during the middle of the petition drive, so that her postal address —which in Wisconsin is listed on the petition—was not accurate during the second half of the drive, so the signatures collected after she had moved were stricken. 

In Pennsylvania the Green Party was removed from the presidential ballot because some paperwork had been faxed to the state elections office instead of being submitted in person.

AG: So we can expect a lot more of the same challenges to ballot access drives for Dr. West given that, as you said, Biden and Trump are currently tied in the polls?

RW: Absolutely. His campaign should be ready for them.

AG: Okay. Dr. West said that he's decided to seek the Green Party nomination, but that he wants to be inclusive, though it's not clear exactly what he means by that. The People's Party doesn’t have any ballot access yet, but were it to qualify in any states where the Green Party has also qualified, would it have to seek Dr. West's agreement to be the candidate of both parties?

RW: You just can't have a general answer to that because every state's laws are different. You'd have to ask about a particular state. About half the states in the US allow a candidate to be on the ballot for two parties. I know it's a mess, but that's the way our country's laws are.

AG: In California I believe that he could be the candidate of both the Greens and the Peace and Freedom Party, which has ballot access, should he seek their nomination.

RW: Yes, that’s correct.

AG: We should make it clear that ballot access laws all over the country are such a patchwork that we have to have this kind of conversation.

RW: The United States and Switzerland are the only countries in the world where the ballot access laws for national elections are not written by the national government. Instead, every little subdivision of the country writes its own laws.

AG: Can you give us any examples of previous campaigns in which one candidate was the nominee of multiple parties?

RW: The best example was 1924, when US Senator Robert La Follette, a famous Wisconsin progressive, ran outside the two major parties. He was the nominee of the Socialist Party, and he was the nominee of the Farmer-Labor Party, which were entirely separate parties. And besides that, he had his own progressive, independent candidacy. So in some states, he was on the ballot three times, and it worked fine.

AG: Did he do well?

RW: Oh, sure. He got 17%. He carried Wisconsin, and came in second in about a dozen states.

Democrats attack third party or independent ballot access when they're scared. With Trump and Biden running neck and neck in the polls, they will no doubt attack ballot access drives for Dr. Cornel West.

AG: Richard, thank you for speaking to Black Agenda Report.

RW: You’re welcome.

Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize  for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at ann(at)anngarrison.com. Please help to support her work on Patreon.

Richard Winger has been the Editor of Ballot Access News for 38 years, from 1985 to 2023. He will soon retire, after which Bill Redpath will take over.

Green Party
Cornel West
ballot access

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
New York Times Attacks “Peace-peddling” Jill Stein as the Presidential Race Comes Down to the Wire
23 October 2024
The New York Times scapegoats Green Party presidential candidate Dr.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
AOC and the Desperate Democrats Attempt to Undermine the Greens
04 September 2024
The incessant and increasingly harsh attacks on the Green Party are indicators of its appeal to millions of people.
Jill Stein campaign
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Dr. Jill Stein: A Ballot Challenge to the Crimes of Empire
06 December 2023
Dr. Jill Stein stepped up to compete for the Green Party presidential nomination after Dr. Cornel West decided to run as an independent.
Ralph Nader
Jacqueline Luqman
Of Course Ralph Nader Can Say He Prefers Autocracy To Fascism: He's Not The Target Of Either
09 October 2023
Millions of people voted for Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader in 2000 but now he has denounced them and himself by proclaiming hi
Green Party Run for Dr. Cornel West
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Green Party Run for Dr. Cornel West
14 June 2023
Dr.
Why Cornel West’s Tenure Fight Matters
Robin D.G. Kelley
Why Cornel West’s Tenure Fight Matters
10 March 2021
Harvard’s administrators completely miss the point of tenure, which was created to allow scholars to do their work, speak their truth, and stand up
Cornel West: Palestine Is a “Taboo Issue Among Certain Circles in High Places”
Azad Essa
Cornel West: Palestine Is a “Taboo Issue Among Certain Circles in High Places”
03 March 2021
West, considered one of America's foremost intellectuals, said he is confident that it is his criticism of Israel that cost him tenure at Harvard.
Green Party Presidential Candidate Howie Hawkins Says 'Real Solutions Can’t Wait'
Barry Sheppard
Green Party Presidential Candidate Howie Hawkins Says 'Real Solutions Can’t Wait'
12 August 2020
The Green Party’s presidential pick discusses his foreign and domestic policy positions.
Truth + Justice = Green Party’s Trailblazing World Peace Platform
Lauren Smith
Truth + Justice = Green Party’s Trailblazing World Peace Platform
15 July 2020
With ballot access in most states and a comprehensive new program for world peace, the Green’s national ticket is ready to battle the oligarchs’ du
“Progressive” Dems Ought to Divorce the Duopoly, Not Badger Greens
Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
“Progressive” Dems Ought to Divorce the Duopoly, Not Badger Greens
30 January 2020
The signers reveal themselves to be as fearful for the fate of the duopoly as the corporate shills they claim to oppose.

More Stories


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio May 30, 2025
    30 May 2025
    In this week’s segment we talk about jails and prisons in New York City and State and the end of city control of the infamous Rikers Island jail. But first a Washington DC activist analyzes how the…
  • Democratic party where are you
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Afeni on Fighting the Bipartisan Fascist Consensus
    30 May 2025
    Afeni is an activist and lead organizer with Herb and Temple in Washington, DC. She joins us from Oakland to discuss politics in the U.S. and how the people can fight the fascism produced by the…
  • Rikers protest
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Eric Adams Loses Control of Rikers Island to Federal Receivership
    30 May 2025
    Our guest is Melanie Dominguez, Organizing Director, New York with the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice. She joins us from New York City to discuss the federal takeover of Rikers Island…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Charles Rangel and the End of Black Politics
    28 May 2025
    The late Charles Rangel served as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus for more than 40 years. But the goals of Black politics and electoral politics are not necessarily the same.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: The Intellectual Origins of Imperialism and Zionism, Edward Said, 1977
    28 May 2025
    “In theory and in practice, then, Zionism is a degraded repetition of European imperialism.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us