The Ohio 2024 Green Party Debacle
Putting together all the pieces, and answering some question
The Ohio 2024 Presidential Election
I was doing some research on some of the characters involved here, and I had a few questions about the Green Party’s participation in the 2024 General Election in the state of Ohio. Here I’ll try to address these questions
Why did the Green Party run their candidates as independents?
Why was Anita Ross ever on the ballet?
Why didn’t the Green Party’s vote count in the 2024 General Election?
On Jill Stein
Stein is the current power center of the Green Party and until they find a way to dispatch her she’ll seemingly volunteer to lose indefinitely. I love Stein’s politics. She always gets my vote. But of the people that can’t mobilize — she’s one of them. Imagine Elizabeth Warren but functioning outside the DNC, and with policies to the left of Bernie Sanders but equally unwavering through the decades. Sounds like a good starter, but it just doesn’t mesh well enough. Stein is every bit the person you want to eat lunch with, and none of the person you want to grab a beer with.
Stein had accrued enough Green Party delegates to secure the presidential nomination in May 2024. She was the presumptive nominee.
Questions
Why did they run as independents?
It’s remarkably difficult to orchestrate a presidential run. In Ohio the Green Party must get 3% of the vote to remain a recognized party. They failed to maintain that and they lost recognition. Because of this, they have to run their candidates as independents.
Why was Anita Ross ever their vice-president?
Moreover, the Ohio deadline for registration on the presidential ticket was August 12 2024. However, the Green Party convention wasn’t until August 17. The announcement of Butch Ware didn’t come until August 16. In order to work around this, the Greens apparently came up with a scheme to nominate a “placeholder” candidate for the Vice President. For this they chose Anita Rios.
Why did they get excluded from the ballot entirely?
In order to place Butch Ware on the ticket, they seemingly concocted a scheme to have Anita Ross withdraw by proxy of Ohio Green Party Co-Chair Philena Farley. Farley would submit a letter of resignation fully decked out with Ross’s signature. Then they would submit Butch Ware as a replacement and viola! Except that never happened. Ohio accepted the resignation, lied to the Green Party about it being too late, and then disqualified the Green Party on the grounds that you can’t run in the General Election without a VP. Upon learning this Rios claimed she never authorized Farley’s letter, and Farley changed her whole story and agreed with Rios.
Farley blames the whole fiasco on a lack of communication. But ultimately, she sent the letter.
Take away
I put the blame on Stein. Why if she had locked up the delegates in May didn’t she have a VP picked by the end of June? That doesn’t make sense to me. She almost certainly knew she would have the nomination. She she should have had a VP picked before the delegates were locked up.