Bad Form
In the dusty, desert town of Pahrump, Nevada, Margery quietly leads a rabble of enthusiasts seeking progress beyond the political status quo. Margery is a political zealot. Middle-aged. Cosmetologist. Self-proclaimed eco-socialist. She leads the Nevada Green Party, a minor-political party that focuses on environmentalism and social justice. Like a locker combination, the Green Party is easy to forget. They have faded from the political radar, tucked away in the attic of memory alongside Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential bid and the Y2K panic.
While the Nevada Green Party managed to qualify for the 2008 ballot, marking one of their notable achievements, their access was not consistently maintained in subsequent elections. For years, they languished in obscurity, their quest for relevance as fruitless as trying to catch the wind. They were not just sidelined from the political feast; they weren't even permitted to enter the banquet hall. But this year, the door creaked open, if only slightly, hinting at a seat they might finally claim.
Our political landscape is a chessboard where only two players are allowed to move, forcing every pawn to choose between black or white, with no room for shades of gray. The Democratic and Republican duopoly has effectively penned voters into a binary choice, like choosing between two foods when you're craving a whole buffet. Minor or third political parties are regarded as spoilers and therefore immensely defamed and attacked. The Green Party has continued to defend their mission, reminding critics that even the now behemoth Republican Party formed in 1854 as a minor-political party.
Margery is a true believer, committed to progress. To get ballot access for the 2024 general election, Margery’s Greens were required to obtain 10,095 valid signatures from Nevada voters. Clipboards in hand, they went to work. They didn't just work; they hustled, sweated, and rallied, amassing signatures like there was a gold rush for democracy. In the end, their efforts weren't just met; they were exceeded, tripling the number of signatures required with the tenacity of underdogs who knew the stakes.
In Nevada, the Secretary of State is the authority and administrator of the elections. Nevada is one of the 35 states that elects their Secretary of State. Candidates run with party affiliations, which inherently brings partisanship into the process. While the role might be intended to oversee elections and perform other duties in a nonpartisan way, the actual process of getting elected involves partisan politics. In the 2022 election cycle, Democrat Francisco Aguilar was elected as the Secretary of State.
Nevada’s Democratic Party led Secretary of State’s Office was responsible for providing the Nevada Green Party with the proper requirements and forms for collecting signatures. Enter Heather, an election’s administrator. Heather's digital existence is as elusive as a ghost in daylight. She might either be a cog in the deep-state machine or simply a bureaucratic automaton, punching the clock while reveling in the perks of government employment. Her ideals are totally unknown. Either way, Heather was directly responsible for instructing Margery.
Prior to circulating its signature-gathering petition, on-a-mission-Margery and the Nevada Green Party filed its initial request with the Secretary of State’s Office on July 10. The petition contained the correct form for minor parties seeking ballot access. Heather responded the same day by email, noting a small technical error in the petition and attached to its email a different form. Turns out Heather instructed Margery to abandon the correct form and use the wrong form. In obedience, Margery and team went back to work pounding the pavement and soon returned with the signatures on Heather’s form. A few days later, they were told the signatures were sufficient and verified by the county clerks and registrars. Margery and her cohort rejoiced in what they thought was their triumphant entry onto Nevada's 2024 ballot. Alas, their political parade was to be a brief one, soon to be rained on by the storms of legal challenges.
Nevada law provides a deadline for legal challenges to ballot access, which in this case was June 10. At the very last moment, as the sun began to dip on June 10, the Nevada Democratic Party initiated a lawsuit to invalidate the Nevada Green Party signatures for using the wrong form for collecting signatures. The very form the Democratic Party led Secretary of State’s office directed them to use. Coincidence or conspiracy?
“They knew it was the wrong form. I submitted the correct form to begin with and they told me it had been "updated" to the form they gave me.” ~ @GreenPartyNV on X
Heather alleged she mistakenly instructed Margery to use the form for qualifying initiatives and referenda instead of the form to qualify minor party ballot access. At no point did she or anyone at the Secretary of State’s office indicate that they were using the wrong form or that there was any problem with their petition. In fact, they officially declared the Nevada Green Party had qualified for ballot access for the 2024 general election.
Defending its right to exist on the ballot against the Nevada Democratic Party lawsuit, the Nevada Green Party raised a host of state-law arguments in defense and added that denying it ballot access would violate their federal due process and equal protection rights. While the District Court agreed, the higher Nevada Supreme Court didn’t and ruled 5-2 in favor of the Nevada Democratic Party. The court found that despite the Secretary of State directing the Nevada Green Party to use the incorrect form, the Nevada Green Party did not meet the legal requirements for ballot access. They described it as an unfortunate mistake by the Secretary of State’s office that the Nevada Green Party should have caught.
Nevada Supreme Court Justices Kristina Pickering and Douglas Herndon dissented, expressing concerns over due process violations and the potential injustice caused by the Secretary of State's error. Herndon wrote that it is unreasonable to expect a minor party to double check the petition sent by the Secretary of State’s office, which “is supposed to be the primary authority on elections in Nevada.”
“It also shocks the conscience, offends judicial notions of fairness, and contributes to a distrust in the election process in Nevada,” Herndon wrote, which Pickering concurred.
While the Court believed there was no evidence that the Secretary of State’s office intentionally misled the Nevada Green Party by instructing them to use the wrong form, this wasn’t the only time they misled a minor political party. Before he suspended his campaign, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign was also ensnared in the Secretary of State's office's web of misinformation.
Following the Nevada Supreme Court's decision, the Green Party sought intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting an emergency stay to allow the Nevada Green Party candidate on the ballot, emphasizing the democratic right of Nevadans to have more electoral choices.
In a twist that could only be scripted in the theater of the absurd, the Nevada Secretary of State's office, with a flourish of irony, accused the Nevada Green Party of trying to jam the gears of election machinery. U.S. Supreme Justice Elena Kagan, perhaps with a judicial side-eye, nodded in agreement. Thus, with a gavel of fate, she sealed the Nevada Green Party's exclusion from Nevada's 2024 electoral dance, leaving them on the sidelines, spectators in their own political saga.
With all avenues exhausted, Margery retreated back to Pahrump. Her journey was marked not by defiance, but by disillusionment. She had traced the path laid before her, adhering meticulously to the directives of the very guardians of democracy. Yet, in an ironic twist, these same custodians of electoral trust, who vow to champion the voice of the electorate, inadvertently steered her towards disenfranchisement. The roadmap to representation, it seems, was flawed from the start.
Was it deep-state sabotage or mere oversight? Heather's role in this electoral drama might fuel the conspiracists' fire, yet as the ballots hit boxes, the truth behind her actions becomes as irrelevant as yesterday's news.
Meanwhile the case underscores the complexities of ballot access laws, where minor errors, even if not entirely the fault of the party, can lead to exclusion from the ballot. The case also raises questions about the roles of state officials in providing accurate legal guidance and the potential for partisan influence in legal challenges to ballot access.
With an ever tightening race for U.S. President, the impacts of this case could be immense. Nevada's electoral votes may decide the presidency. Given the Electoral College system, where a candidate needs 270 votes to win, Nevada's six votes are not just a number but a critical part of various electoral scenarios. For instance, if the election is tight, with candidates closely clustered around the 270 mark, Nevada's votes could be decisive.
In 2020, Joe Biden edged out Donald Trump by just 33,596 votes. But delve into history, and you find an even tighter squeeze: Hillary Clinton in 2016 barely outmaneuvered Trump by a mere 27,202 votes, a figure so slim it could slip unnoticed between the cards of a shuffled deck. Enter now the consequences of the Nevada Green Party’s exclusion from the ballot. They amassed nearly 30,000 signatures in support of their campaign and would have likely increased that amount if they continued on. If history is a predictor of the future, Nevada’s winner will be decided by roughly 30,000 votes. Perhaps these votes slip back into the Democratic Party’s favor, helping them secure Nevada’s electoral votes.
This election's outcome will significantly influence domestic and foreign policies, potentially affecting economic strategies, international relations, and judicial appointments, all of which have long-term implications for American and global affairs. Some whisper that we're teetering on the brink of a new global conflict, with America's stance being the fulcrum upon which the world's fate lies. As we head towards an era of new American politics, the presidential election may come down to the winner of the critical swing state of Nevada, and the consequences of a bad form.
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