22 August 2016

Green Party claims Jill Stein will be on Montana’s ballot

 Updated at 17:42:35 MDT.   Green Party candidate Stein now is listed on the MT SecST’s website as “Pending” for president.

Two days ago, I reported that efforts to collect enough signatures to put Jill Stein, the Green Party’s candidate for president, on the 8 November ballot in Montana, had failed. The Green Party, however, believes it has submitted three times the required number of signatures, and that Stein has qualified for the ballot.

Stein’s name did not appear on the Montana Secretary of State’s official list of candidates for president, and was still missing from that list when I checked it again at 0018 today. It’s possible that the petitions have not reached SecST’s office yet; the deadline for that is 24 August.

Earlier this month, I sent Ryan Moore, the man the Green Party listed as its ramrod for the petition drive, an email asking for an update on the campaign. He never replied.

I’ll update this post as required by events.

In 2000, with Democratic Party hating Ralph Nader as its candidate, the Green Party received six percent of the vote in Montana. His effort to punish Democrats for not being sufficiently pure succeeded when he took enough votes away from Al Gore in Florida that George W. Bush was elected president. Whether Stein’s goal is inflicting Trump on the nation to punish Democrats for nominating Hillary Clinton is unclear, but it’s worth remembering that Nader’s revenge put in the White House a man who started two wars and tried to privatize Social Security.