GAME OF POLLS: THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S BALLOT CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE GREEN PARTY AND THE NEW WAR ON THIRD PARTIES
by Albert Lanier
Rachel Maddow of MSNBC calls it “a Republican party op”.
Krystal Ball of the online TV show RISING describes it as “a coordinated campaign of voter suppression.”
Howie Hawkins, Presidential Candidate of the US Green Party, states “I think we got screwed.”
All three are referring to efforts by the Democratic Party to keep the Green Party, a smaller Third Party in American Politics, and its candidates for local, state and national office in several states before this November’s General election.
In a September 15 segment on the online political morning show RISING produced by the publication The Hill , co-host Krystal Ball noted that the Democratic Party is behind the moves to oust the Green Party and a number of its candidates including its national ticket of Presidential Candidate Howie Hawkins and its Vice Presidential Candidate Angela Walker from the ballot in Montana, Texas, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Ball noted of the Democrats that “They’ve launched an all out war over Green Party ballot access with some serious success thus far.”
In fact, in Wisconsin, the State Supreme Court allowed the Green Party’s Presidential Ticket to be purged from that state’s November ballot ruling 4–3 against the Greens.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an article about the decision noted that Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Roggensack called the initial deadlocked 3–3 decision of the State election Commission that initially kept the Greens off the ballot “lawless”.
In a dissent, Justice Roggensack wrote that the lawsuit from the Green Party was “about the treatment that independent candidates from a small political party received from the commission who refused to follow the law relative to nomination papers.”
Another Jurist, Justice Ziegler contended in a separate written dissent that kicking the Greens off the ballot in that state prevents Wisconsin citizens of “a voice” and “strips them of one of the most fundamental tenets of this republic, the right to express one’s will at the ballot box.”
According to local Wisconsin TV station WISN 12, the earlier ruling by the Election Commission (composed of 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats) was ostensibly predicated by a spurious excuse: VP candidate Angela Walker moved residence this year thus her previous address on forms was not her new current address.
“You’ve got partisan hacks from the two major parties running their own elections” Hawkins told WISN 12 in an interview after the Supreme Court decision.
In Montana, Democrats actually targeted and intimidated voters who had signed petitions to get Green Party candidates on the ballot and got them to recant. Thus far, 5 Green Party candidates were blocked from the ballot in the state.
Texas saw three candidates for US Senate, US House and Railroad Commission blocked from the ballot at first due to a new law passed by the state legislature that requires third party and independent candidates to pay a $5000 filing fee. However the Supreme Court recently ruled that the candidates were eligible to be on the November ballot.
Pennsylvania had seen an effort to keep the Green Party off its ballot and thus stop holding up absentee voting.
Why is a major party like the Democratic Party even bothering to annihilate and eliminate a minor party like the Green Party electorally?
A segment on Syracuse’s WSYR News Channel 9 noted “Democrats fear that adding Howie Hawkins would take votes away from Joe Biden.”
The World Socialist Web Site in an August 24 article observed “with regards to the Greens, the Democratic Party’s immediate concern is that any left-wing choice in the November election will subtract votes from the right wing Biden/Harris ticket.”
The reality is clear. Much like the now cancelled MSNBC show, The Democratic Party is playing Real Life Hardball in this election.
The irony is that Democrats publicly pontificate and hand-wring over access to voting on TV and online. They’ve sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s bashing of mail-in voting in light of the coronavirus.
The hidden truth is vastly different: Democrats are using their enormous power to smash small, independent parties.
For example, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo spearheaded a law that would crush the state’s Working Families party.
While the Democrats efforts against the Green Party ticket of Hawkins and Walker is specific to 2020, Democrats have long held vendettas against candidates of third parties,
This goes back to the 2000 Presidential Election and consumer advocate Ralph Nader’s candidacy. Democrats used the same pressure tactics on petition signers who backed ballot access for Nader in respective states to get to recant their signatures.
This was just a warm up. Nader who ran for President on the Green Party ticket was also kept out of participating in the televised Presidential Debates. In addition, Nader who obtained a ticket to an offsite venue where the debates could be seen on TV was blocked from entering by local law enforcement and threatened with arrest if he did not depart.
Republican George W Bush eventually beat democrat Al Gore in what became a messy, contested and slightly protracted election due to a state ordered recount in Florida because the results were in the cliched parlance of politics “too close to call”. After a few weeks of recounts and political recriminations , the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of suspending further recounts thus basically giving the election to Bush.
Strangely, Nader was held by a number of Democrats to be responsible for Bush’s win. This made no sense. Besides the fact that Nader was a minor party candidate who statistically could not have denied Gore the White House,Gore could easily have gained enough votes to win. For instance, ensuring he won his own home state of Tennessee instead of losing it to Bush.
Then there was another Green Party candidate, Harvard educated Dr Jill Stein who’s 2016 run against Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump was frought with controversy.
Stein was also blamed by Democrats of helping give the race to Trump. Purportedly, Stein’s margin of votes in 3 crucial states supposedly made a difference in the election. Again as with Nader previously, this is political and statistical wish fulfillment not cold, hard, electoral fact.
It is therefore no surprise that the Democrats have mounted a campaign against third parties like the Greens.
The strategy seems simple: Destroy the escape valve for progressive and left wing voters. The Democrats dont actually want or desire left wing votes. They want centrist, conservative and right wing votes siphoned off from the GOP.
This effort to lure disaffected conservatives and even right wingers has been a strategy of Democrats for at least a couple of election cycles if not longer.
Oddly, MSNBC’s Star TV show host Rachel Maddow sees the Green party as party of a secretive, furtive, tacit alliance with the GOP. She noted in a segment on her show examining the Wisconsin ballot decision that “Republicans would love to have another Green Party candidate on the ballot.”
Krystal Ball though mocked this contention on RISING and noted the Democratic Party was “putting their vendetta with the Green Party and their authoritarian obsession with making sure that voters have no other choice above a smooth and non-chaotic election night.”
Comedian and talk show host Jimmy Dore perhaps notes the absurd nature of this anti-Green, anti-third party campaign best noting on September 17 about Wisconsin on his show that ‘the Democrats are so weak that are literally afraid of Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate who is polling at around 0%”
Dore further states “That’s how weak-that’s how corrupt and awful Joe Biden and the Democrats are.”
“They are so horrible. They know they can’t entice anyone to vote for them so they have to make sure they then take any of their alternatives off the ballot and that’s what the Democrats are doing.”
A newspaper and magazine journalist and freelance writer for 22 years, Albert Lanier served as a contributor to Honolulu Weekly, Pacific Business News, Hawaii Magazine and Asianweek amongst other publications.
Retired since 2017, Lanier has written a blog about media and current news for medium.com and continues to serve as a commentator and analyst interviewed on talk shows and podcasts.
