Green Party Calls for Probe of "Sham Candidates"

(AP)  The Arizona Green Party will ask a judge on Thursday to remove 11 of the party's nominees from the November ballot.

The party calls the nominees "sham candidates" and says they were placed on the ballot "to mislead voters and rig the election process."

Greens and Democrats say the Republican Party took advantage of a little-known provision in election law that applies only to the Green Party. It allows people to become a Green Party nominee with a single write-in vote.

Greens are asking the judge to prohibit use of that system and to remove from the ballot 11 of the party's 18 candidates.

Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne says she needs to know by 7 a.m. Friday which names will be on the ballot.

[Whistlepunk]

I'm registered as a Green Party member, and have been for over 7 years. In the name of protecting the environment, we need to put a stop to runaway human population growth, and the best way to do that is to stop illegal immigration. That having been said, the best thing for the Green Party is to leave the candidates on the ballot. The Democrats don't care about the environment. They've proven that.

[superdem1]

The Republican who orchestrated these sham candidates was interviewed on NPR, you should have heard him going on and on about what great candidates these folks were and how they have every right to run, they bring so much energy, they're so good for democracy. The interviewer then said if they're such good candidates, why isn't he trying to bring them into the Republican Party ? "Because they're not Republicans !" he said. That tells you right there that his only interest is in muddying the water for the "Democrat" party, the derogatory term he and every right winger uses when referring to the Demcratic Party. When the interviewer asked why the Green Party was not embracing these wonderful candidates themselves, he said candidates are not owned by the parties, they don't have to do whatever the Party says. Again that tells you these "candidates" are sham plants whose purpose is to fix the election.

[inketolstoy]

"Democrat" party, the derogatory term he and every right winger uses when referring to the Demcratic Party"

Most "right wingers" (is that a derogatory term you are using there, superdem?) use much stronger derogatory terms to refer to the Democratic party. But they have a long way to go to catch up the progressives and their clever "republikkkan" and "tea baggers".

[tsigili]

Looks like there are a number of issues regarding election process, in this report.

More and more, I feel the election process in America, has become of highly questionable integrity and validity.

[endurorob_5]

My first question here is why is there a provision in election law that applies only to green party candidates? My second question is that, although I find these tactics by the repubs unacceptable, since what was done is legal what leg do the greens and dems have to stand on.

[recoveringRepub]

I guess as with all dirty politics it only designed to allow republicans to cheat (supreme court selection of Geo Bush 2000). Also see: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/08/politics/main6846880.shtml?source=related_story
Democrats are held to a higher standard since republicans are "not perfect; just forgiven". So we turn a blind eye to their dirty tricks, ask Ross Perot.
Get out and vote Democratic and put enough democrat congressman and senators there to make CHANGE HAPPEN. Stop the ignorance of the republican machine.

[0bviousman]

There is no "special" provision in Arizona election law that applies only to Greens. There's just a vastly reduced signature requirement for tiny parties.

Here's the real issue: the entire purpose of a party is to bring together people who share a particular philosophy of governance. This is why candidates were traditionally chosen in "smoke-filled rooms" by party leaders who knew them personally, knew what they stood for, and knew they were dedicated to their shared principles.

But in 1968 that all changed. For all practical purposes, the two major parties had institutionalized themselves into two additional permanent branches of government. (Did you realize that your TAX MONEY pays for the Republican and Democratic conventions, but other parties have to pay for their own?) Americans began demanding that private party candidate selections had to be arrived at "democratically," meaning they wanted a vote in "internal club" decisions they frankly weren't qualified to make. (Ironically, the sort of people who belong to the Green party were the ringleaders of this movement.)

Today, the paradigm is that a "neutral" secretary of state collects government-designed forms on which every random voter in the state "claims" to be a "member" of some party or other, even if he hasn't the slightest idea what that party stands for. The party itself has NO INPUT to this process, and NO CONTROL over who claims to be a member, or even who claims to be a candidate!

As a result, the two major parties stand for nothing anymore except who can "win" an election. If you've ever wondered why every important election today seems to boil down to a choice between a d** bag and a t** sandwich, now you know: there are no longer any IMPORTANT or consistent philosophical differences between the two major candidates, and the media actively campaigns against non-major candidates.