WE ARE ON THE BALLOT IN NOVEMBER! HOWEVER, THE POWERFUL DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE APPEALED OUR FEDERAL COURT WIN, AND WE BELIEVE THE ATTACKS ON OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO RUN CANDIDATES WILL KEEP COMING FROM THE DEMOCRATS! WE NEED YOUR HELP!
Can you donate $25 to build and to defend our ballot line? Make your contribution to our Ballot Access Defense Fund.
North Carolina Green Party has won two historic victories in the courts against the wrongful actions of the NC State Board of Elections (SBOE) and the NC Democratic Party's unconstitutional attempts to keep us off the ballot! On August 1st, the SBOE certified the North Carolina Green Party as an official political party, and subsequently, a federal judge ordered the SBOE to add our candidates Matthew Hoh for US Senate and Michael Trudeau for NC State Senate District 16 to the ballot this November.
Several days later, the Fourth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals denied a request for stay by the deep-pocketed Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, securing NC Green Party's candidates their rightful space on the ballot in November 2022. This ruling serves as vindication for NCGP, for our dozens of grassroots supporters who spent thousands of hours petitioning, and for over 22,000 residents of North Carolina who supported democracy by signing our petition.
The people of NC will now be able to vote for candidates who stand for affordable healthcare for all, for eviction and foreclosure relief, debt relief, and for a systemic solution to environmental destruction (instead of trillions for war). This is a victory for democracy and voter choice beyond the limited spectrum of solutions that Wall Street wants us to hear and choose from.
We won the first rounds, but we faced unprecedented legal attacks in our effort to get on the ballot after having more than fulfilled all legal requirements set by statute, and we might face more. Unfortunately these potential legal challenges could last for over a year, challenging future ballot access -- the SBOE claims it is still "investigating" our petition signatures. In addition to this, the harassment and intimidation campaign has seriously damaged our ability to petition in the future. If money rather than truth determines our future, we are lost, so we need your help to defend our work on behalf of the people who believe in real democracy! Our party is centered around people, not money. Please contribute what you can to our legal fund and show the moneyed power elite that grassroots politics is alive and well in North Carolina.
The North Carolina Green Party is the only political party in our state truly interested in protecting people’s interests and the environment for a livable future. You can help by making a contribution to our Ballot Access Legal Fund.
UNPRECEDENTED VOTER HARASSMENT AND INTIMIDATION
In response to the NCGP collecting enough signatures to achieve ballot access, ruthless Democratic Party operatives began one of the most aggressive voter harassment campaigns in our state's history: They began spam texting and calling our petition signers several times a day, pressuring them to retract their signatures from the NCGP's petition. In many of these encounters, the callers outrageously and fraudulently claimed to be with the Green Party, and other callers were rude and falsely claimed they cannot say which organization they're with! Still other spam callers and texters claimed to be with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Even worse, these operatives also visited many of our petition signers' homes to pressure them to retract their signatures. We expect such attacks on the legitimacy of our petition signatures to continue after Election Day 2022.
The NC Green Party submitted more than 22,500 petition signatures to get on the ballot by the state's official deadline, and the county boards of election validated over 2,200 signatures above the requirement (not including the hundreds of signatures we strongly feel should not have been invalidated). Despite this, the NC State Board of Elections outrageously refused to grant NCGP ballot access at its July 1 meeting!
This harassment and intimidation has already caused irreparable damage to the entire candidate and initiative petitioning process in our state and we have received calls of support from third parties and independents as well as hundreds of Green supporters and people who have been subjected to harassment.
Your contribution to the North Carolina Green Party's Ballot Access Defense Fund will help us:
-
Pay for legal fees toward getting us on the ballot and protecting our members and supporters from further harassment
-
Pay tabling fees at fairs, festivals, and other events to get the word out
-
Cover materials, printing, and transportation costs, and
-
Run strong NC Green Party candidates for office and fight for political independence from the parties of Wall Street and War!
No one else will fund this work except Greens like you. Please contribute what you can today.
You can also help by lending a hand with our efforts to get on the ballot continue political education and recruit more candidates by becoming an NCGP member and by volunteering!
Thank you for your support!
(Background: After the 2020 elections, the NCGP was kicked off the ballot, largely due to barriers that Covid presented to nationwide petitioning and get-out-the-vote efforts. We had to collect about 14,000 valid petition signatures on paper to get back on the ballot. Because of onerous ballot access laws designed to keep independent and working-class political choices off the ballot, running candidates as independents for most offices is actually far more difficult than requalifying for party recognition. Meanwhile, the governor and General Assembly have not responded to us to correct this undemocratic treatment during a global pandemic.)
