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On March 20, 2026, led by lead counsel Mark Brown, CCD filed suit on behalf of Samuel Ronan, a candidate for U.S. House seeking to run in Ohio’s May 5, 2026 Republican primary, to challenge the decision of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and the Franklin County Board of Elections removing Ronan from the ballot. That same day, Chief Judge Sara D. Morrison of the federal District Court for the Southern District of Ohio entered an order directing the Defendants to place Ronan back on the ballot.

Ronan had qualified to run in the Republican primary, but a protest to his candidacy was filed in the name of Republican voter Marc A. Schare.

Schare’s protest alleged that Ronan was not a genuine Republican even though he is a member of the party. Based on Ronan’s past political speech, the protest asserted that he had not truthfully declared, as required by Ohio law, that he is “a member of the Republican Party” and that “if elected to said office … I will support and abide by the principles enunciated by the Republican Party.”

In other words, Schare’s protest sought Ronan’s removal from the ballot on the ground that his past political speech made it impossible for him to swear truthfully that he is a Republican.

Such an ideological purity test has no basis in Ohio law and violates the First Amendment.

Chief Judge Morrison appears to have agreed. In her March 20, 2026 order, Judge Morrison concluded that Ronan and his co-plaintiff “are substantially likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claim,” and they “will suffer irreparable harm absent this Order.”

Interestingly, during a hearing on the protest before the Ohio Board of Elections, Schare admitted under oath that he did not prepare his protest, did not hire his lawyers, and did not know who did.

Schare’s attorneys strongly objected to this line of questioning. Soon after the hearing, however, they admitted that the Ohio Republican Party had retained them and was paying their attorney’s fees.

So the Ohio Republican Party, as the true party in interest in the case, filed a protest to remove a candidate from its own primary ballot, without disclosing that it was behind the protest.

The Franklin County Board of Elections split along party lines, with the two Republicans voting in favor of the protest and the two Democrats voting against it.

Ronan had moved for the recusal of Republican Board member Meredith Freedhoff on the ground that she is Chair of the Franklin County Republican Party, which officially supports Ronan’s opponent in the primary, the incumbent Michael Carey. The county party has also contributed $500.00 to Carey’s campaign, and Carey’s campaign paid the county party more than $10,000.00 in December 2025. Freedhoff nevertheless declined to recuse.

As a result of the board’s tie vote, the matter went to Secretary LaRose to break the tie. LaRose, a Republican, voted in favor of the protestor.

Because the Court’s March 20, 2026 order restoring Ronan to the ballot was a temporary restraining order, it expires after 14 days. The parties are therefore briefing the case on an emergency basis to determine whether the Court should enter a preliminary injunction that will secure Ronan’s placement on the ballot for the May 5, 2026 primary.

But this case has already exposed one critical fact: the Ohio Republican Party is willing to take secretive action to suppress voter choice within its own closed primary.

On January 23, 2026, District Judge Terrence W. Boyle entered a final judgment in Ortiz v. North Carolina State Board of Elections, No. 5:24-cv-00420 (E.D.N.C.), holding unconstitutional the Board’s failure to certify the Justice for All Party (“JFA”) as a new political party in the 2024 presidential election.

CCD’s client Dr. Cornel West formed JFA in support of his 2024 presidential campaign. The Board declined to certify JFA as a political party, despite its full compliance with North Carolina law, because a majority of the Board concluded that JFA was not a genuine political party. In the majority’s erroneous view, qualifying a presidential candidate for the ballot is somehow an improper purpose for forming a political party.

In August 2024, Judge Boyle entered a preliminary injunction directing the Board to certify JFA and place Dr. West on North Carolina’s ballot as a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

After the election, the Board moved to dismiss the case as moot. It argued that the passage of the election meant the Court could not grant further relief.

CCD opposed the Board’s motion, arguing that a final judgment was necessary because the Board has a history of failing to certify new parties that qualify for North Carolina’s ballot. This history, CCD argued, demonstrates that the case is not moot because it is “capable of repetition yet evading review” — an exception to mootness for disputes that happen too quickly to be fully litigated before they are over. Election law cases are a typical example.

In entering his final judgment, Judge Boyle agreed: “[T]his very case is a repetition of the unconstitutional conduct at issue in North Carolina Green Party v. North Carolina State Bd. of Elections,” he reasoned, and concluded, “this case falls in the mootness exception for wrongs capable of repetition but evading review….”

CCD represented the North Carolina Green Party in the prior case, in 2022, when the Board failed to certify it for the ballot despite its full compliance with North Carolina law. In that case, the federal court granted a preliminary injunction ordering the Board to place the Green Party candidates on North Carolina’s 2022 general election ballot. Then, after the 2022 general election, the Court dismissed the case as moot.

CCD argued that a final judgment was necessary in Ortiz to prevent the Board from continuing its unconstitutional failure to certify new parties that qualify for North Carolina’s general election ballot.

Fortunately, this time Judge Boyle agreed.

Dear Thom,

 

Two decades ago, during the 2004 presidential election, you accused Ralph Nader of attempting to “deceive” voters about “the role of third parties” in our electoral system. By running as an independent in a first past the post, winner take all system, you claimed, Nader was making the process “less democratic” because his candidacy would split the progressive vote and help Republican George Bush win even if a majority preferred Democrat John Kerry. You argued that progressives should therefore “support” the Green Party but focus on “infiltrating” the Democratic Party: “As more and more progressives join the Democratic Party … we will gain enough power to bring about changes … that will … pave the way for third, fourth and fifth parties to participate in a truly democratic fashion in America.”[1]

Twenty years later, you’re still at it. In 2024 you warned of the peril posed by the centrist ticket No Labels intended to run: “The simple reality is that in our political system … a third-party candidate always hurts the party it’s most closely aligned with.” Just as Green candidates Nader (in 2000) and Jill Stein (in 2016) “hurt the Democratic nominee,” you claimed, a “moderate” No Labels candidate would hurt “moderate” Joe Biden and “throw the election to Trump.”[2]

 

Your position on this issue, which perfectly reflects the prevailing orthodoxy among Democratic Party leaders and loyalists, seems an odd fit for a progressive who claims to support the Green Party. But before we get to that, let’s start with some basic facts. You say Nader’s candidacy “hurt” Al Gore in 2000 because you assume more of Nader’s 97,488 Florida voters would have preferred Gore to Bush. Since Bush “won” Florida by only 537 votes, you conclude Gore would have won if Nader hadn’t run. But what makes you so sure? No one knows what those 97,488 voters would have done, much less how the election would have turned out, if Nader hadn’t run. Some would have voted for Gore, but others would have voted for Bush, others would have stayed home, and others would have voted for one of the other seven presidential candidates on Florida’s ballot. The only thing we really know about these voters – apart from their support for Nader – is that they declined to support either Bush or Gore.

 

Before you dismiss such skepticism as a bad faith denial of the obvious, consider the widely-cited study two political scientists who shared your belief about Nader voters conducted to test that assumption.[3] After reviewing the evidence, they were surprised to find that “at most” 60 percent of Nader voters in Florida preferred Gore to Bush, while “at least” 40 percent preferred Bush to Gore. And even this equivocal finding, they conceded, is biased in Gore’s favor because their data came exclusively from ten heavily Democratic counties and thus omitted a substantial number of Nader voters who preferred Bush to Gore. The evidence thus suggests the split is closer to 50–50.

Setting aside your unfounded assumption about Nader voters, there’s a bigger problem with your position. Simply put, reality is not as simple as you say. Has it occurred to you that Nader’s 2000 candidacy had impacts beyond the one you fixate upon and consider outcome-determinative?[4] For example, how many disaffected progressives do you think Nader mobilized, who ended up holding their noses and voting for Gore? Nader consistently polled higher than 5 percent during the election, but received only 2.74 percent of the vote – a margin of difference that translates to a few million votes. Based on your own assumption, these erstwhile Nader supporters must have defected to Gore, right? And that’s just what professor Solon Simmons found in a study of voter turnout: Nader’s candidacy caused a statistically significant “mobilization effect,” the result of which was that “some large number but small proportion of the Gore vote would not have voted for Gore had Ralph Nader not been in the race and reminded them what a left agenda could feel like.”[5]

 

Now consider how many independents voted for Gore only because Nader was in the race. How so? By running to Gore’s left, Nader enabled Gore to position himself more credibly as a centrist, and to capture a larger chunk of that all-important constituency. In effect, Nader’s Green Party candidacy neutered the standard Republican charge that the Democrat was a left-wing extremist – a line of attack to which Gore was particularly susceptible given his penchant for environmentalism and big government solutions. So Thom, in your estimation, how many independents would have swung from Gore to Bush if Nader hadn’t run? Law professor Robert Fellmeth puts that figure at 5 to 10 million nationwide, including “a lot more than 100,000” in Florida alone.[6] In other words, without Nader in the race, Gore would have lost both the Electoral College and the popular vote.

 

You might quibble with Fellmeth’s numbers, but the larger point he and Simmons both raise is unassailable: the claim that Nader cost Gore the election by dividing the progressive vote relies on cherry-picked facts and disregards all evidence to the contrary. Take that study of Nader’s Florida voters referenced above. It is widely cited as “proof” that Nader cost Gore the election, but like you, it assumes away almost every other possible outcome. It assumes that if Nader hadn’t run, each of his 97,488 Florida voters would have voted either for Gore or Bush, that none of them would have stayed home, none would have voted for one of the other seven presidential candidates on Florida’s ballot, and all other voters nationwide would have voted as they actually did. But these aren’t reasonable assumptions. Without Nader in the race, the entire dynamic of the election would change, and as Fellmeth and Simmons show, there’s good reason to believe Gore would have received even fewer votes.

 

Now let’s return to your claim that minor parties and independents make our system less democratic when they participate. If that is so – and it isn’t – it’s fair to ask how your proposed alternative is faring. Have progressives infiltrated the Democratic Party to any significant degree in the last two decades? Have they built sufficient power to impact the party’s platform in a measurable way?

 

Even you must concede the answer is No. On issue after issue, the Democratic Party remains indifferent if not hostile to progressive policies. Does the Democratic Party support single payer healthcare? No. A living wage? No – Democrats don’t even prioritize raising the minimum wage, stagnating at $7.25 since 2009, much less an increase that would allow working Americans to afford food, housing and other basic necessities. Meanwhile, rich Americans’ wealth has spiked such that the gap between rich and poor is greater now than any time since before the Great Depression, yet Democrats refuse to utter the word “poverty” and cannot conceive of a plan – like the Green New Deal, for instance – to address the vast wealth inequality that places a modest standard of living out of so many Americans’ reach. What about reducing military spending by eliminating the rampant waste, fraud and abuse in the Pentagon budget? No again. Democrats don’t even question it. Not coincidentally, congressional Democrats voted nearly unanimously to authorize the United States’ illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 (Greens, Libertarians and independents like Nader, you may recall, stood alone in their opposition to that war crime), President Biden gave Ukraine a blank check to repel Russia’s invasion but evidently did nothing to broker a peace, Democrats unfailingly support and enable Netanyahu’s ongoing atrocities in Gaza, and Democratic leaders did not even object when dictatorial Donald Trump openly announced his unconstitutional intention to bomb Iran without congressional authorization, which he has now done.

 

Admittedly, there are counterexamples and exceptions, but the overwhelming reality is that progressives have not infiltrated the Democratic Party so much as they have been subsumed, stifled and neutralized when they try. Just ask Bernie Sanders. He ran for president as a Democrat in 2016 propelled by a groundswell of grassroots progressive support, but his “revolution” was stopped cold by DNC superdelegates empowered to disregard primary election results and pledge their support to Hillary Clinton. Sanders then endorsed Clinton, without extracting concessions, and his influence within the Democratic Party remains negligible. Democrats haven’t adopted his positions. 

 

That’s not to say it can’t be done. You cited the conservative movement that brought Reagan to power in 1980; more recent examples include the Tea Party and MAGA movements. But you make a stronger claim – that “infiltration” of the Democratic Party is progressives’ only viable electoral strategy unless and until major reforms like Instant Runoff Voting – which the Democratic Party still doesn’t support – are enacted. How can you stand by that claim when your strategy has failed for 20 years and counting?

 

Besides, your claim is not even historically accurate. Our two party system has never been one in which only two parties participate. Instead, minor parties have always played a critical role by injecting new ideas into the public debate and championing innovative policies the major parties either ignored or opposed but later adopted. These include the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, the minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, social security and the progressive income tax.[7] Aren’t you glad minor parties led the way on these issues? You can add opposition to American war crimes to the list, to cite just one present day example. Don’t you wish Democrats had listened to Nader and the Greens and Libertarians instead of authorizing the illegal invasion of Iraq? Don’t you wish Democrats would listen to them now, instead of aiding and abetting Netanyahu’s genocidal destruction of Gaza?

 

Now suppose Greens took your advice and continued to “support” their party while leaving it to join the Democratic Party – how would that work? The Green Party would soon cease to exist. Millions of Americans who support the Green Party’s agenda would have no representation within the electoral arena and that support would wither away. The Green Party doesn’t make our system “less democratic” by giving these voters a voice and an opportunity to build political power. And their effort to do so is no less valid or legitimate than your effort to infiltrate the Democratic Party – particularly when Democrats don’t support the very reforms that would address your concerns about minor parties’ participation in the electoral process.  

 

So who is attempting to deceive whom, Thom? After 20-plus years without results, you sound a bit like a Pied Piper of politics, urging progressives to follow you down a path from which they will never be seen or heard again. What’s worse, when you claim Nader tipped the 2000 election to Bush or Jill Stein tipped the 2016 election to Trump, you are not only treating rank speculation as if it were proven fact, but also repeating Democratic Party talking points intended to scapegoat Greens. This serves Democratic Party leaders’ dual interests in evading responsibility for their own failings and deterring other candidates and parties from challenging Democrats’ presumptive entitlement to the votes of any American to the left of Richard Nixon. But it does not serve the interest of truth. And it is an affront to the fundamental principle underlying our democracy, that “government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed,” as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence.

 

My sincere hope is that you and other progressives will successfully infiltrate the Democratic Party – and soon. But I don’t think your commentary about Greens and other minor parties furthers that effort. Democrats don’t pay attention to progressives because they don’t think they need to compete for progressives’ votes. And when you tell progressives their only option is to join the Democratic Party, you are also telling Democrats they are right.

 

Sincerely,

Oliver B. Hall

[1] Thom Hartmann, Ralph Nader: Let the Voter Beware, CommonDreams.org (August 6, 2004), available at https://www.thomhartmann.com/articles/2004/08/ralph-nader-let-voter-beware.

[2] Thom Hartmann, Will “No Labels” Usher in a Trump or DeSantis White House in 2024?, The Hartmann Report (April 13, 2023), available at https://hartmannreport.com/p/will-no-labels-usher-in-a-trump-or.  

[3] See Michael C. Herron and Jeffrey B. Lewis, Did Ralph Nader Spoil a Gore Presidency? A Ballot-Level Study of Green and Reform Party Voters in the 2000 Presidential Election, Quarterly J. of Pol. Science, Vol. 2, No. 3, pages 205-226 (August 2007).

[4] To provide further perspective, here are just a few reasons why Gore lost, each of which had a far greater impact on the outcome of the election than Nader’s campaign for the fledgling Green Party: 1) the Electoral College gave Bush the win, even though 543,895 more Americans voted for Gore; 2) five Republican-appointed Supreme Court Justices ensured Bush’s victory by halting a recount that was ongoing in Florida; 3) Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican who also served as state chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign, improperly purged thousands of Democrats from the state’s voter rolls; 4) faulty ballot designs in several Florida counties cost Gore thousands more votes; 5) at least 250,000 registered Democrats in Florida voted for Bush instead of Gore; 6) Gore lost his home state of Tennessee; and 7) Gore lost Bill Clinton’s home state of Arkansas. Wouldn’t Democrats be better served by focusing on these factors, rather than attempting to blame Greens?

[5] See Solon Simmons, One in Ten Thousand: Ralph Nader Takes on the Presidency, Wisconsin Pol. Scientist (U. of Wisconsin, Madison, Summer 2004).

[6] See Robert C. Fellmeth, Why Democrats Should Thank Nader, The San Diego Union-Tribune (Nov. 12, 2000).

[7] See generally Steven J. Rosenstone, Roy L. Behr, and Edward H. Lazarus, Third Parties in America (Princeton U. Press 1984).

If you’re reading this email you may already know how often qualified candidates and parties get thrown off the ballot based on bogus technicalities.

Like the time Democrats tried to force Cornel West off Wisconsin’s 2024 ballot because a two-page document he filed wasn’t stapled.

Or when they claimed RFK, Jr. shouldn’t be allowed to start a political party in North Carolina because he identified as an independent.

Or the Democrats’ favorite: that the Green Party should be disqualified in North Carolina due to evidence of “widespread fraud” in its nomination petitions — except the evidence didn’t exist, and the Court sanctioned the Democrats for pursuing frivolous claims.

Well, Republicans can play that game too.

Does Elon Musk know what he’s in for by founding the new America Party?

Read all about it — including CCD’s take — in Axios today.

And if you support our work, including beating back these efforts to suppress voter choice, consider making a tax-deductible contribution today.

It all came down to a staple.

A single staple.

According to the Democrats who challenged Independent presidential candidate Dr. Cornel West’s right to be on Wisconsin’s 2024 general election ballot, he had complied with Wisconsin law in every way — except for one small thing.

As an Independent candidate, Dr. West was required to submit an affidavit of candidacy.

Which he did.

And it was required to be notarized.

Which it was.

But there was some technical deficiency in the notarization — the notary hadn’t properly affixed a seal, or dotted an “I” or crossed a “T” — and so Dr. West notarized a new page, completely and correctly this time, and submitted it together with the first page of his affidavit.

But he didn’t staple the two pages together.

And so Democrats — the party whose presidential ticket claims to be running to “save democracy” — challenged Dr. West’s nomination papers, claiming he failed to comply with Wisconsin law.

CCD represented Dr. West at the hearing before the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

As the attorney for the Democrats admitted, Dr. West had fully and completely complied with Wisconsin law, and was otherwise entitled to appear on the 2024 general election ballot, except, according to the attorney, his affidavit was missing a staple.

To its credit, all but one member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission rejected this argument and voted to place Dr. West on the ballot.

See the Associated Press coverage here.

State and Federal Court Rulings Guarantee Ballot Spot for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Dr. Cornel West, and other Candidates on North Carolina’s 2024 General Election Ballot

Washington, DC (August 13, 2024): In two separate proceedings on Monday, a state court and a federal court ruled that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Dr. Cornel West, and other candidates nominated by their respective parties, must be placed on North Carolina’s 2024 general election ballot.  CCD and More Voter Choice Fund (“MVCF”) represented the We the People Party, which nominated Mr. Kennedy, in the state court action, and represented the Justice for All Party, which nominated Dr. Cornel West, in the federal court action. 

“As the courts recognized, there was never any doubt that We the People Party and Justice for All Party both satisfied the statutory requirements to be recognized as political parties under North Carolina law, and thus deserved to have their candidates on the ballot for the benefit of North Carolina’s voters” said MVCF Board Chair, Theresa Amato. “The baseless claims asserted against these parties were a transparent attempt to suppress the constitutional rights of North Carolina voters who support Independent and third party candidacies instead of the tired, anti-competitive tropes of the two major parties.”

The North Carolina Democratic Party (“NCDP”) initiated the state court case in Wake County Superior Court and asserted that the North Carolina State Board of Elections (“the Board”) violated North Carolina law by certifying We the People Party as a new party.  NCDP conceded that We the People Party complied with all applicable statutory requirements – specifically, that it timely submitted petitions signed by the required number of voters – but contended that the party had been formed for an “impermissible purpose” because its intention was to nominate Mr. Kennedy for President, even though he has stated his intention to run as an independent candidate.

Wake County Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory rejected that argument. Ruling from the bench on Monday, he said that it would be “unconscionable” for the court to hold that a candidate could not rely on the North Carolina statute that expressly authorizes candidates to qualify for the ballot by forming a new political party.

Judge Gregory also ruled – as MVCF counsel Oliver Hall of the Center for Competitive Democracy argued – that the Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed that the First Amendment guarantees the right to form political parties.

The federal court proceeding was initiated by voters who support the Justice for All Party after the Board declined to certify the party even though it timely submitted more than enough signatures to satisfy the statutory requirement.

Dr. Cornel West, the party’s nominee for President, and Italo Medelius, its Chair, represented by MVCF, intervened in the case.

In its order granting a preliminary injunction, the federal court concluded that the Board’s denial of Justice for All Party’s certification was a “severe burden” on its constitutional rights because the “hallmark of a severe burden is exclusion or virtual exclusion from the ballot.”  The federal court further concluded that the state’s Board failed to assert any interest that could justify that burden.

“We are pleased but not surprised by the Courts’ rulings in these cases,” said Attorney Hall.  “There was no basis in fact or law for NCDP’S claims against We the People Party, nor for the Board’s denial of the Justice for All Party’s certification as a new party. Both courts got it right, and all North Carolina voters will benefit as a result.”

The state court case is North Carolina Democratic Party v. North Carolina State Board of Elections, No. 24-CV-023631-910 (Wake Cty. Sup. Ct.).

The federal court case is Ortiz v. North Carolina State Board of Elections, No. 5:24-cv-00420-BO (E.D.N.C.).

###

Media Inquiries:

Oliver Hall

202-248-9294

oliverhall@competitivedemocracy.org

May 21 2024 (Washington, D.C.): In a certified letter sent to CNN and the presidential campaigns of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the Center for Competitive Democracy (“CCD”) advised that the presidential debate CNN plans to host on June 27, 2024, with Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump’s participation, is likely to violate the Federal Election Campaign Act (“FECA”) and related regulations, and if so, it could give rise to millions of dollars in prohibited corporate expenditures by CNN and unlawful corporate contributions to the Biden and Trump campaigns.

Under the FECA and related regulations, a broadcaster that wishes to stage candidate debates “must use pre-established objective criteria to determine which candidates may participate….” Where the debate-staging organization is a corporation, like CNN, its failure to establish such criteria, or to adhere to them, would render its expenditures in connection with the debate unlawful. The value of the broadcast likewise would be an unlawful corporate contribution to the participating candidates. The candidates’ acceptance of such a contribution also would be unlawful.

On May 15, 2024, CNN announced that it would host its presidential debate in its Atlanta, GA studios, and that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump had both “accepted an invitation from CNN” to participate.

At the same time, CNN announced the criteria that candidates must meet to participate in the debate. One such criterion is that candidates “appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency prior to the eligibility deadline.”

But neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Trump will appear on any state ballots by June 20, 2024 — the date CNN identified as the eligibility deadline. The major parties do not select their nominees until their national conventions — August 19-22 for the Democrats and July 15-18 for the Republicans — and therefore neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Trump will appear on any state ballot before their respective conventions.

In its letter, CCD states:

Given the near-certainty that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump will fail to comply with CNN’s stated criteria, CNN’s decision to invite their participation – and the candidates’ acceptance of that invitation – raises serious questions regarding the lawfulness of the scheduled debate. Does CNN intend to waive [the ballot-qualification criterion] as it applies to Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump? If not, how does CNN justify inviting them to participate, when neither candidate’s name will appear on any state ballot as of the June 20, 2024 deadline for determining their eligibility?

These questions are especially troubling, CCD’s letter states, because CNN itself reported that the early date selected for its debate “might help weed out third-party candidates that could cause problems for both Trump and Biden.” The deadline for such candidates to qualify for the ballot in many states extends long after the deadline for them to qualify for CNN’s debate, making it more difficult for them to comply with CNN’s ballot-qualification criterion.

If CNN waives its ballot-qualification criterion as applied to Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, while enforcing it against other candidates, it would be in violation of the requirement that it apply pre-existing, objective criteria to determine candidates’ eligibility.

The Washington Post, Axios and others have reported that CNN had given the Biden and Trump campaigns assurances that no other candidates would participate in its debate.

A Biden campaign adviser reportedly told Axios that the Biden campaign’s condition for a one-on-one debate with Mr. Trump “was made clear to CNN and they understood our position when we accepted their offer.”

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that a CNN producer told a Trump campaign official — after describing CNN’s debate criteria — that “RFK will not be on the stage.” (RFK refers to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is running as an independent candidate.)

CCD’s letter requests that CNN confirm it will either apply its criteria equally to all candidates, or that it will waive the ballot-qualification criterion not only for Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, but all other candidates.

CCD also notes that CNN has “adopted the same 15 percent polling threshold that the Commission on Presidential Debates employed to exclude all non-major party candidates from the debates it hosted since 1996.” It urges CNN to adopt a more reasonable and inclusive polling requirement, equal to the 5 percent requirement candidates must meet to qualify for public funding.

The letter requests a response by May 27, 2024.

– End –

Court concludes Democrats pursued “frivolous” actions in effort to block Greens from North Carolina’s 2022 general election ballot

RALEIGH, NC: United States District Judge James C. Dever, III today ordered the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (“DSCC”) and the North Carolina Democratic Party (“NCDP”) to pay attorney’s fees to the North Carolina Green Party (“NCGP”) arising from the Democrats’ efforts to force the Greens off North Carolina’s 2022 general election ballot.

Judge Dever concluded the Democrats had pursued actions that were “frivolous” or “without foundation” after intervening in a federal lawsuit the Greens filed against the North Carolina State Board of Elections in July 2022 following the Board’s refusal to certify NCGP for the ballot.

The case effectively concluded on August 5, 2022, when Judge Dever ordered the Board to certify NCGP as a party and place its candidates, Matthew Hoh for U.S. Senate and Michael Trudeau for State Senate, District 16, on North Carolina’s 2022 general election ballot.

Thereafter, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the Democrats’ appeal and Hoh and Trudeau appeared on the ballot, but Judge Dever retained jurisdiction to enforce his order and to grant further relief, including an award of attorney’s fees.

NCGP settled its claim for attorney’s fees against the Board, but the DSCC and NCDP refused to settle. NCGP therefore requested an award of fees against them.

“Unlike fee awards against state party defendants like the Board, fee awards against private intervenors like the DSCC and NCDP are extremely rare,” said Oliver Hall of the Center for Competitive Democracy, which represented NCGP. “Courts only award fees against private intervenors if their actions were frivolous, unreasonable or without foundation — but Judge Dever found the Democrats’ conduct satisfied that standard here.”

Specifically, by filing a lawsuit in state court seeking to prevent the Board from certifying the Greens for North Carolina’s ballot, even though Judge Dever was already presiding over the same claims and issues in federal court, the Democrats “potentially subjected [the Board] to contempt of court via inconsistent judgments,” Judge Dever observed.

The Democrats’ “action in filing the state suit was frivolous,” Judge Dever concluded.

Judge Dever also found the Democrats’ effort to obtain a stay of his August 5, 2022 order placing the Greens on North Carolina’s 2022 general election ballot was “without foundation.”

“The record flatly contradict[ed] all of [the Democrats’] arguments,” Judge Dever observed, and they “tilt[ed] at windmills out of fear that some voters will vote for the two Green Party candidates instead of the Democratic candidates.”

The Democrats’ effort to obtain the stay was also “frivolous,” Judge Dever concluded.

Judge Dever ordered the DSCC and NCDP to pay NCGP only the attorney’s fees it incurred specifically as a result of the Democrats’ frivolous actions — an amount totaling $6,525.00.

“This is a huge victory that was never about money,” Hall said. “It was about holding the Democrats accountable for their improper and unfounded efforts to suppress North Carolina voters’ choice in 2022, and today Judge Dever did so.”

In a previous order, Judge Dever found the Democrats could not seek relief in the case because they had not come to court with “clean hands” — meaning they had acted improperly in attempting to disrupt and delay the Greens’ petition drive.

The Greens presented evidence that the DSCC and NCDP engaged in a massive effort (see pp. 8-9) to harass and intimidate voters who had signed the Greens’ nomination petitions — including by misrepresenting themselves as Board or Green Party personnel.

Judge Dever nonetheless found that he could not impose attorney’s fees against the Democrats for these efforts because they occurred before the litigation commenced.

Still, this appears to be the first case in which a major party has been sanctioned for its improper attempt to thwart a minor party’s effort to qualify for the ballot. For more details on that attempt, see here and here.

NCGP’s lawsuit is cited as North Carolina Green Party v. NCSBE, 619 F. Supp. 3d 547 (E.D. N.C., August 5, 2022).

CCD counsel Oliver Hall has published “The Democrats’ Anti-Democratic Attack Dogs” in the latest issue of Capitol Hill Citizen, available here.

The article details the Democratic Party’s history of suppressing voter choice by interfering with independent candidates’ and minor parties’ nomination petitions, then challenging them in court based on legal technicalities and trumped up allegations of “fraud”.

Most recently, the Democrats have announced their intention to block No Labels’ effort to place a “unity” ticket of one Republican and one Democrat on the 2024 presidential election ballot.

Before that, Democrats went all in on an effort to disrupt the North Carolina Green Party’s nomination petition drive in 2022 — an effort CCD successfully beat back in federal court.

But as the article explains, the Democrats have a long history of suppressing voter choice, dating back at least to their attempt to block Ralph Nader’s independent candidacy from state ballots in the 2004 presidential election.

But since courts have yet to hold Democrats accountable for their efforts to win elections by eliminating the competition, they remain free to pursue this anti-democratic strategy. Suppressing voter choice is now just another tactic in the Democratic Party’s playbook.

For the last several years, CCD has been in federal court challenging the ballot access requirements in two of the most restrictive states in the nation — Indiana and Texas.

During that litigation, we presented uncontested evidence demonstrating that it now costs $500,000 or more for a statewide Independent or Minor Party to qualify for the ballot in Indiana, and in Texas it costs $1,000,000 or more.

Why does it cost so much?

Partly it’s due to the huge number of signatures each state requires Independents and Minor Parties to submit — about 40,000 or more in Indiana, and 80,000 to 100,000 or more in Texas — plus all kinds of onerous requirements and restrictions on the signature collection process itself.

But another critical factor is that neither state has updated or improved its petitioning procedures since they were adopted more than 100 years ago.

Today — just like the horse and buggy days — Independents and Minor Parties must demonstrate voters’ support by obtaining their signatures on paper nomination petitions signed by hand and in person.

That process might have been sufficient a century ago, when states only required a few hundred or a thousand signatures for ballot access, but it’s woefully inadequate today, when signature requirements have skyrocketed.

And just like the signature requirements themselves, the cost of complying with them has skyrocketed.

In both cases, CCD argued that the exorbitant cost of complying with these antiquated and obsolete procedures is an unconstitutional financial barrier to political participation.

And in both cases, federal district courts improperly rejected the argument by refusing to consider our uncontested evidence establishing that cost.

Here is the Texas decision. And here is the Indiana decision.

The Texas decision was appealed to the Fifth Circuit, and the Indiana decision was appealed to the Seventh Circuit.

Both appeals have been fully briefed and await oral argument.

We’re looking for a reversal in each case. Courts can reject our claims, but they cannot disregard the evidence. And if they consider that evidence, they should hold the laws in both states unconstitutional.

See the Indiana appellate brief here.

See the Texas appellate brief here.