21 April 2018 — 1318 & 1755 mdt
Montana Green Party asks supporters to attend
24 April court hearing on ballot access
Update, 1755 MDT. The Montana Green Party has secured Quentin M. Rhoads as its attorney in the ballot access case. According to the GP, the Montana Democratic Party is represented both by local counsel Mike Meloy and “international legal behemoth” Perkins & Coie, which advertises political law as a specialty.
1318 MDT. Montana’s Green Party is urging voters who signed petitions to put the party on the ballot to show up for the district court hearing on the Montana Democratic Party’s lawsuit asking the court to remove the Green Party from the 2018 ballot.
The Montana Green Party is encouraging supporters from across the state to attend this hearing in order to defend petition signers rights and voting rights in general. If they are unable to attend the hearing in person they are requesting that the fill out the attached form declaring the validity of their support.
The full Green Party statement is below.
In an attempt to disqualify as many signatures as possible, the MDP is demanding a very strict standard for signatures on petitions. An unnecessarily strict standard that helps the MDP boot the Greens from the ballot could make the task of securing signatures for Initiative 185 — for all initiatives — more difficult.
Monday, I’ll post information on the history of Green Party candidates in Montana, and offer my thoughts on whether having the Green Party on the ballot should be causing the MDP so much heartburn.
April 20, 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MONTANA DEMOCRATS TRY TO REMOVE GREEN PARTY FROM BALLOT
info@mtgreenparty.org
(HELENA, MT) The hearing to determine if the Montana Democratic Partys attempt to remove the Montana Green Party from the ballot will take place in Helena District Court on Tuesday April 24th at 1:30pm. The Montana Green Party is encouraging supporters from across the state to attend this hearing in order to defend petition signers rights and voting rights in general. If they are unable to attend the hearing in person they are requesting that the fill out the attached form declaring the validity of their support.
Montana Green Party Coordinator issued this statement: More than 10,000 Montana voters signed their names declaring their support for the Montana Green Party to be on the 2018 ballot. State and local elections officials did their due diligence in reviewing those signatures and determined that 7,386 signatures were valid and that the MTGP had qualified in total of 38 districts. This is far more the the 5000 signatures and 34 districts that the party needed.
The efforts by the Democratic Party to disqualify the Green Party over 180 signatures that the Dems don’t think are good enough is not only petty, but also a direct attack on the rights of the Montana voters who signed this petition. For an organization that claims to represent the best interests of the people of Montana, the Democratic Party is working in overdrive in their undemocratic attempt to silence Montanas Green voices.
The Montana Democrats are likely running up a huge bill by sending in the out-of-state international legal behemoth, Perkins & Coie, to work alongside their local counsel the Meloy Law Firm. If the Democratic Party’s legal efforts are successful in snuffing out this Green Party ballot access, Montana taxpayers may be responsible for covering the out-of-state legal firms costs along with the state legal costs, making this effort even more abhorrent.
If that is the case, Montana voters would essentially pay the total economic cost to have their civil rights violated via the out-of-state influence of a heavy handed, high-powered international legal firm.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ga_1h5sgymgMqvG9b7ZNhg_YFvTyWmBfwqn9vOmd1BI/edit?usp=sharing