Democrats file complaint to exclude Green Party from Wisconsin presidential election
A Democratic National Committee employee filed a complaint on Wednesday, August 14, demanding that the Green Party’s presidential candidate be removed from the Wisconsin ballot on the grounds that the party is unelectable.
It is the latest move by the DNC to exclude third-party candidates from the election. The Democrats are also trying to stop independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in several states.
The Green Party’s choice could make a difference in the swing state of Wisconsin, where four of the last six presidential elections have been decided by margins of 5,700 to 23,000 votes. Jill Stein is expected to be officially named the Green Party’s presidential candidate at the party’s convention beginning on Thursday.
The Associated Press left email messages with the Green Party and Stein’s campaign team on Wednesday afternoon.
The last time Stein ran for the Green Party in Wisconsin was in 2016, when she received just over 31,000 votes – more than Donald Trump’s margin of victory this year of just under 23,000 votes. Some Democrats credited Stein with helping Trump win the state and the presidency.
The nonpartisan Election Commission in February unanimously approved the Green Party’s presidential candidate this year because the party won more than 1% of the vote in a statewide election in 2022. Green Party candidate Sharyl McFarland received nearly 1.6% of the vote, finishing last in a four-candidate race for secretary of state.
But the complaint filed with the commission by a DNC official states that the Green Party cannot nominate electors in Wisconsin and without those votes they are prohibited from putting a presidential candidate on the ballot.
Close races in key states
State law requires those who nominate electors in October to be state officials, including members of the legislature, judges and others. They could also be candidates for the legislature.
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The Greens have no one who could be considered as a nominating candidate and therefore cannot name a list of presidential candidates as required by law, the lawsuit states.
Because the Greens could have launched a mail-in ballot campaign for parliamentary candidates in Tuesday’s primary election but did not do so, the complaint could not have been filed earlier than Wednesday, the filing said.
“We take the presidential and vice-presidential nomination process very seriously and believe every candidate should follow the rules,” said Adrienne Watson, senior counsel to the DNC, in a statement. “Because the Wisconsin Green Party has not nominated candidates for legislative or statewide offices and does not currently have any legislative or statewide incumbents, it cannot nominate candidates and should not be on the ballot in November.”
This is not the first time that the Green Party’s voting status has been challenged.
In 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court kept the Green Party’s presidential candidate off the ballot after upholding the blockade by the Wisconsin State Elections Commission, which could not agree on whether the candidates had submitted the correct paperwork.
Not the first challenge
This year, in addition to the Republicans, Democrats and Greens, the Constitution Party and the Libertarian Party also have access to the ballot. The commission will meet on August 27 to decide whether four independent presidential candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, qualify for the ballot. The DNC staffer is asking the commission to review their complaint at that meeting as well.
In some swing states, including Wisconsin, there are signs that backers of third-party candidates are trying to influence the outcome of the presidential election through fraudulent means—in most cases in ways that would benefit Trump. Their goal is to offer left-leaning third-party alternatives that could siphon off a few thousand protest votes.
The latest Marquette University Law School poll, conducted July 24-August 1, found the Wisconsin presidential race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Trump roughly tied among likely voters. Stein barely made it into the race with about 1% support, while Kennedy received 6%.
The complaint was filed by David Strange, deputy director of operations for the DNC in Wisconsin.
