On Monday, a judge in the state of Nevada dismissed a Democratic-backed lawsuit seeking to exclude Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein from the state’s 2024 ballot.
“We prevailed against the Nevada Democratic Party’s lawsuit!” Stein wrote on X. “We are pleased to announce that the verdict was in our favor and we can offer Silver State voters an alternative that stands up against genocide, stands up for workers, and stands up for climate protection!”
The whole saga began in June, when Nevada’s Democratic Party filed a lawsuit claiming that the Green Party had not collected enough valid signatures in the Silver State’s congressional districts to appear on the November ballot.
According to local media reports, the left-leaning third party submitted “nearly 30,000 signatures to be on the ballot – far more than the required 10,000.” The office of Nevada Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar ruled that 14,821 of the submitted signatures were “valid,” and subsequently declared the Green Party eligible to be on the ballot.
Writing for the First Judicial District Court of Nevada in and for Carson City, Judge Kristin Luis found that Nevada Democrats had not met the burden of proof necessary to show that the petition filed by the Green Party was “clearly invalid.”
The plaintiffs “have not presented sufficient evidence to show that the petition has fewer than the required number of valid signatures in any petition district,” Luis wrote. “…The Court therefore concludes that the Democratic Party has failed in its burden to prove that the Green Party has substantially failed to comply with the law.”
The last-ditch effort to keep Stein off the Nevada presidential ballot is one of many challenges being pursued by Democrats seeking to boost Kamala Harris’s electoral chances. Concerned that the presence of left-leaning candidates on the 2024 ballot could steal votes from Harris, Democrats are using legal means to block those candidates from the ballot in mainly battleground states across the country.
Earlier this year, Clear Choice Action, a Democratic-aligned super PAC, filed a lawsuit in North Carolina seeking to deny ballot access to third-party parties representing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West. After a slow approval process, the state’s Democratic-controlled Board of Elections granted ballot access to Kennedy’s party last month.
The board did not approve West’s party’s application, however. That decision was recently overturned by a North Carolina court, which ordered the Board of Elections to “approve the party and extend the filing deadline,” according to Courthouse News Service.
(READ: Democrats love ‘democracy’ so much they’re trying to keep RFK Jr. off the 2024 ballot)
Clear Choice Action has also filed lawsuits to bar Kennedy from the November ballot in states including Pennsylvania and Illinois. A Democratic judge granted the group’s request on Monday, denying Kennedy access to the ballot in New York.
Shawn Fleetwood is an editor at The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a content writer for the Convention of States Action and his work has appeared in numerous media outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter at @ShawnFleetwood
