Georgia Green Party

Two days ago, a two-plus decade long supporter of our efforts to build a new political party in Georgia called me with a great deal of anger and fear for another Trump administration to argue that ‘now is not the time’ for us to put at risk the chances for the Party of Genocide to retain the White House.

Yet, every election cycle is an opportunity to build political power independent of the corporate duopoly parties.  Any election cycle not used for that purpose is wasted and sets back whatever progress we have made in previous election cycles.  To demur at this time is to shrink from the challenge put before us.  No one else will build this party but us.

When we registered on May 8th, 1996 with the Secretary of State as a political organization in Georgia, we said in our registration statement that our Party “is being organized to provide an electoral tool for the grassroots movement for social justice, peace and non-violence, participatory democracy and ecological sustainability”.  In this year, the movement for peace and opposed to genocide has rallied around the campaign we mount as a vehicle vital to the expression of their political aspirations for this country.  It would be a tragic abdication were we, at this late date, to withdraw from the field, to decline to participate or to deny the peace movement an opportunity to use the party we have built as a vehicle for their efforts.

We are hearing from the muslim supporters of our campaign that this is a time for sacrifice; that the sacrifices we are asked to make pale in comparison to the sacrifices being endured by our neighbors in Gaza and Palestine, in Syria and Libya and Yemen.  They are urging us to take the risks demanded by our desire for change.  We are listening as muslim advocates for the the Stein-Ware 2024 campaign push back against the bullying by democrats who express entitlement to our votes, reminding our communities that now is the time that we must play the long-game.

If our muslim neighbors are willing to risk another Trump administration, with its muslim bans and moving the US embassy to the contested city of Jerusalem and the heightened islamophobic rhetoric, certainly we can share that risk.  Solidarity requires that we overcome the fear, that we share the sacrifice, that we face threats together.

And ultimately we can push back against the blue team’s bully tactics with a show stopping question of our own:  what evil could possibly be greater than genocide?

The following was authored by a coastal Texan active with the Abandon Harris campaign.

Abandon Harris to Launch Georgia Campaign
Georgia Green Party welcomes national effort, endorsement

A Media Advisory

Event:  Press Conference
Date/Time:  Thursday, October 17th, 2024 at 11:30 am
Place:  Martin Luther King Center; 449 Auburn Avenue; Atlanta GA 30312

As their website puts it, “The Abandon Harris Campaign (formerly the Abandon Biden Campaign) seeks to empower people of conscience to leverage their vote for the US presidency and, consequently, effect moral change in the United States and around the world.” The strategy is simple: encourage voters to reject Harris and Trump, and any party complicit in war and genocide, by supporting candidates like Dr. Jill Stein who stand firmly against these atrocities. Last week, Abandon Harris officially endorsed Dr. Stein.

This endorsement reflects a significant shift, showing that people of conscience are moving away from traditional party lines to support leaders who align with their principles against genocide. Polling among Muslim voters shows that the non-Trump vote among Muslims is evenly split between Harris (D) and Stein (G). Dr. Rudolph (Butch) Ware, Dr. Jill Stein’s Vice-Presidential running mate, noted, “The Democrats have lost the Muslim vote. And we are never coming back”.

The Muslim vote in Georgia is estimated as at least 6 or 8 times the margin of victory which gave Biden the Georgia electoral college votes over Trump in 2020.

The overseas ballots have been mailed.  Clock is ticking.  What have you done today, to deliver the vote for the slate of the Georgia Green Party? Have you contributed yet financially to helping us do so?

Jill Stein and Butch Ware on The Breakfast Club, 2024-Sept-12.

Georgia Green Party Prepared to Appeal Judge Malihi Order
Legal options still open to Georgia Green ballot access efforts
Party remains ready to offer ballot qualified opposition to war and genocide

In a series of rulings adverse to the cause of political independence Administrative Law Judge Michael Malihi found reason to support each of the ballot qualification challenges filed by Democrat voters.  Those Democrats seek to deny Georgia voters inclined to vote for Green and independent candidates an opportunity to see their candidates of choice on the Georgia ballot.

Judge Michael Malihi presides over ballot access challenges.
Picture Credit: Natrice Miller, AJC

Among those adverse rulings, in the case Pigg et al vs Carr et al (the Georgia Green Party slate for Presidential Electors), Judge Malihi rejected every contention of challengers but one.  The Court found that the Georgia Green Party is a registered political body in Georgia and is in compliance with respect to how its Conventions were publicized and conducted, and how its slate of candidates for Presidential Electors was qualified.  The Judge found that the one shortcoming was in the party’s ability to document its place on the ballot in twenty other states under a new statute adopted this past Spring.

“One cannot produce documents which do not yet exist”, said Hugh Esco, Secretary of the Georgia Green Party and the sole witness called in the case.  “As our testimony made clear, Secretary Raffensberger has asked us to produce documents, many of which do not need to be filed in other states until up to three weeks after his early deadline for our filing with his office here in Georgia.  This deadline undermines the intention of the General Assembly and the early date imposed serves no compelling governmental interest.”

Party officers were not surprised by the ruling given the limits imposed by the administrative procedures act which prohibit the consideration of Constitutional concerns by Administrative Law Judges.  Judge Malihi’s Initial Order is now sent to the Secretary of State to inform their final determination.

“We hope though that the Secretary’s office will collaborate with us in recognition of the obvious Constitutional issues raised by the early deadline and save us all the trouble of an appeal to Fulton Superior Court,” said Craig Webster, counsel for Georgia Green Party respondents.

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Executive Summary and Table of Contents
for Supporting Documents for Georgia Green Party’s  21-2-172(g) Affidavit
Supporting_Documentation–executive_summary–toc

Decision of Judge Michael Malihi
Initial_Order–Pigg-v-Carr–2502871–20240826

Georgia Green Party
https://georgiagreenparty.org/

Georgia Green Party files ballot access paperwork
ready to offer ballot qualified opposition to war and genocide
while fending off Democrats intent on excluding Jill Stein from the ballot

On Friday, August 23rd, 2024, with a 3:33pm timestamp, the Elections Division accepted a Presidential Elector Nomination Affidavit, signed by Chairwoman Kristin Zebrowski, on behalf of the Georgia Green Party.  This is the first time this

new process for getting on the ballot has ever been used in Georgia.  It was created by an act of the most recent term of the Georgia General Assembly.

While preparing for Friday’s filing deadline, the party faced a challenge mounted by Democrat voters seeking to deny Green voters an opportunity to vote for their candidate of choice.  They have raised a shifting array of arguments each intending that the Georgia Green Party not be able to offer Jill Stein and Rudolph Ware as its Presidential Slate to Georgia voters in the upcoming general election.

The Affidavit was delivered, along with 299 pages of supporting documents by Hugh Esco, Secretary of the Party.  As a witness at Thursday’s hearing Esco told the court,

“I think it’s pretty clear that the Assembly wanted to make it possible for new political bodies, new political parties that have some base of support across the nation to participate in our presidential elections.  I think that that’s a good thing and it ought to be applauded.”

Additional pleadings are expected from both parties by noon, Monday.  The Judge has asked for language for his proposed decisions.  He also offered to consider additional arguments related to new issues not previously briefed and new exhibits offered without notice by petitioners.

Blake Evans, Director of the Elections Division told Esco that he expected a determination by the end of next week.

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Photo Credit: Rahul Bali, WABE

Photo Caption: Hugh Esco, party Secretary files with Georgia Elections Division, a ballot access affidavit under state’s new 20 state rule, with supporting documentation. Also pictured are Nicolas Northen (Assistant Deputy Director) and Blake Evans (Director).

Photo Credit: Rahul Bali, WABE

Photo Caption: Binder of Supporting Documents required by Affidavit.

Green Party calls Frivolous, Candidate Qualification Challenges
Filed on behalf of Biden-aligned SuperPAC
Corporate Interests Choose our Candidates
Before Voters Choose our Elected Officials

In a July 12th complaint filed with the Secretary of State of Georgia, Bondurant, Mixon and Elmore, a corporate law firm in Midtown Atlanta, has challenged the qualifications of the Georgia Green Party to nominate candidates for public office, and particularly in the Presidential race. They filed this action on behalf of Craig Louis Pigg, Catherine Smith, and Mary Lou Waymer. A hearing on the matter is expected before the Office of State Administrative Hearings.

“The Clear Choice PAC intends to choose our candidates, and limit voters options before we have an opportunity to choose our elected officials,” said Hugh Esco, Secretary of the Georgia Green Party who for six years chaired the Georgia Voter Choice Coalition. “The corporations have traditionally used the wealth primary for exactly this purpose, and have managed to foreclose policy reforms from within their parties. We know they pitch their sock puppets against one another as a circus to distract voters. Here they seek to also exclude the party we built to represent the interests of working people. And most insulting of all, they fraudulently claim the mantle of democracy as they limit our choices.”

Bondurant, Mixon and Elmore describe themselves as “an elite group of highly-qualified litigators dedicated to winning high-stakes business disputes”. They operate out of a suite of offices on the 39th Floor of One Atlantic Center on Peachtree Street.

Their ballot qualifications challenge relies on the failure of these ‘elite litigators’ to craft an open records request which would elicit the documents they claim do not exist.

The Georgia Green Party Platform Committee invites the public to attend a hearing Thursday, May 9, 2024 at 4PM Eastern Time on HR02 – Remove Endorsement of Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, a proposal to amend the platform. The May 18, 2024 Additional Nominating Convention is scheduled to consider all such platform revisions.

The hearing is scheduled for the purpose of taking the testimony of Jamie Reed, who authored the affidavit which instigated an investigation by the Missouri Attorney General of the St. Louis Transgender Clinic where Ms. Reed was employed for four years.  The story broke in the Free Press, (February 2023) which recently (New Years Eve 2023) revisited her narrative with this.

Register Now!

Notice is given that Greens from across Georgia are urged to attend the 2024 Nominating Convention of the Georgia Green Party.

We will convene on Saturday, May 18th, at 10am, with plans to ad

journ at 4pm that afternoon. This nominating convention is our opportunity to nominate candidates for public office (including ten vacancies on the state party’s slate for Presidential Electors), elect the party’s internal leadership, consider amendments to the bylaws which have been previously reviewed and amendments to the party Platform.

Green Party members and others registered to participate in the Convention are invited to show up at 9 am to caucus for the purpose of naming delegates from their county to the 2024 Nominating Convention of the Georgia Green Party. This virtual event will be hosted on an online conferencing platform and pre-registration is required.

This meeting will consider nominations for internal party offices, including three two-year seats and five one-year seats on the state committee. The Nominating Convention will also consider proposed amendments to the state party platform and proposed changes to the bylaws as such may have been previously reviewed by the state committee.

Aspiring candidates for partisan public office are urged to reach out to discuss our litigation strategies and how you might participate in this election cycle to open up our ballot access options for future election cycles.