Scoop: Green Party Submits 20K Signatures for Nevada Ballot

UPDATE: This story has been updated to add comment from the Nevada Green Party.

The Nevada Globe is reporting that The Green Party has submitted more than 20,000 signatures statewide, about twice the number required to qualify for the ballot in 2024. If the process holds up to the harsh scrutiny that will surely be directed her way — expect Democratic partisans to fight and nail against the inclusion of the Green Party candidate—then Jill Stein, the party’s nominee in 2012 and 2016 will face Silver State voters in 2024.

According to the source who informed the Globe that the signatures had been submitted, the 20,000 plus names include “more than 5,000 signatures in each congressional district.” The same source says that “The minimum signatures required to qualify for the ballot is 10,095,” although even that seemingly straightforward number is not universally agreed upon.

According to the source, who is experienced with drives to place candidates on the ballot in multiple states, Nevada has the least transparent system for deciding which candidates qualify and do not qualify.

The source told the Globe, “In most states, it’ll be public that the signatures have been gathered and then the process of challenging them will play out in public. It’ll be like ‘Oh, we received 25,000 signatures and 20,000 are needed. And then a week later you’ll get an update that says, we disqualified 1,000 for faulty addresses and then 500 for some other flaw and it’s like a countdown — will they be able to knock off enough to prevent the candidate from getting on the ballot. But in Nevada, it’s all secret. And we’re hearing the Democrats are actively pressuring the Secretary of State to just announce that Stein didn’t make it.”

Unsurprisingly, Democrats are not happy at the prospect of facing the popular and principled Jill Stein on their ballot for a third time (she also ran in 2012 and 2016). The Nevada Green Party doesn’t tweet all that often, but one of the one of its recent messages minces no words.

Someone replying to Jill Stein writes, “A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Trump just like 2016. Let that sink in.”

Another Green Party member called Veronica responds, “DNC Cultists offer lies. ‘Let that sink in?’ A vote for Dr Stein does no more to help Trump than cooking at home profits McDonald’s. Say “no” to lies & delusion by #DemExit & #VoteGreen”

The Nevada Green Party retweeted Veronica’s response, signaling that it does not accept the idea that a vote for Stein is a wasted effort.

That dynamic may prove especially poignant in this election, when both major party candidates are painted by pro-Palestinian activists as too sympathetic to Israel, while another third-party candidate, Robert F Kennedy Jr., might be the most pro-Israel of all. The same Twitter Veronica adds to her message that “a vote for Biden or Trump or RFK is a vote for Israel to genocide all Palestinian children.”

Setting aside her over-the-top language and false equivalency, it’s clear that the Green Party intends to market itself this year as the one pro-Palestinian option, and that could sway plenty of Democrats who have been frustrated with Biden‘s inability to pressure Israel into ending its war on Hamas.

In fact, just yesterday, Jill Stein herself released a video calling hers an “anti-war anti-genocide pro peace agenda.”

This will be the first election involving Trump in which the Secretary of State in Nevada is a Democrat. Republican Barbara Cegavske served as secretary of state from 2015 to 2022, but the office flipped in 2022 when Cegavske was term-limited and Democrat Cisco Aguilar defeated Republican Jim Marchant by about 23,000 votes. Aguilar came up through the Harry Reid ranks and in fact actually served as a law clerk for the former Senate Majority Leader, whose hard-knuckled style of politics still holds sway over the state’s Democratic Party.

After this story appeared, the Nevada Green Party confirmed its central contentions, although citing slightly different numbers for both signatures gathered and totals required. Margery Hanson, the Co-Chair of the Nevada Green Party, told the Nevada Globe, “Of the 10,065 signatures necessary to gain Ballot Access, we have collected almost 30,000 signatures from all 4 Petition Districts combined, which were turned in on May 18th, 2024.”

Ms. Hanson also responded to the Globe’s question of whether the Greens expected anyone to oppose the signatures. “As for opposition, [we] hope for the best and plan for the worst. We are prepared should it come to litigation.”

Nevada Globe’s sister site, Arizona Globe, has been reporting on efforts in that state by allies of the Democratic Party, including super lawyer Marc Elias, to disqualify one Green Party candidate in order to benefit another Green Party candidate. The leaders of the Arizona Green Party have strongly condemned the Democrats who have propped up a candidate they consider fraudulent, and whose max-out donors have all been high-profile Democrats with no history of Green Party support.