On Monday, a Nevada judge tossed a Democrat-backed lawsuit aimed at keeping Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein off the state’s 2024 ballot.
“We have prevailed against the legal challenge from the Nevada Democratic Party!” Stein wrote on X. “We are excited to say that the ruling has been made in our favor and we will offer an anti-genocide, pro-worker, climate action choice for Silver State voters!”
The entire saga began in June, when the Nevada Democratic Party filed a lawsuit alleging the Green Party did not gather enough valid signatures in each of the Silver State’s congressional districts required to appear on the November ballot.
According to local media, the left-leaning third party “turned in nearly 30,000 signatures for ballot access — far more than the required 10,000.” The office of Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, determined 14,821 of those submitted signatures were “valid,” and subsequently declared the Green Party eligible for ballot access.
Writing for the First Judicial District Court of Nevada in and for Carson City, Judge Kristin Luis determined that Nevada Democrats did not meet the necessary burden of proof demonstrating how the petition submitted by the Greens “is clearly invalid.”
Plaintiffs have “not produced sufficient evidence to show that the petition has less than the required number of valid signatures in any petition district,” Luis wrote. “… The Court therefore finds that the Democratic Party did not meet its burden to show that the Green Party failed to substantially comply with the law.”
The last-ditch attempt to keep Stein off Nevada’s presidential ballot is one of many challenges filed by Democrats seeking to boost Kamala Harris’ electoral prospects. Worried that left-leaning candidates’ presence on the 2024 ballot could syphon votes away from Harris, Democrats are using lawfare to deny these candidates ballot access in primarily battleground states across the country.
Earlier this year, Clear Choice Action, a Democrat-aligned super PAC, filed a lawsuit in North Carolina that tried to deny ballot access to third parties representing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West. After slow-walking the approval process, the state’s Democrat-controlled election board granted Kennedy’s party ballot access last month.
The board did not, however, approve the bid launched by West’s party. That decision was recently overturned by a North Carolina court, which ordered the election board to “certify 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 trying to keep Kennedy off the November ballot in states such as Pennsylvania and Illinois. A Democrat judge granted the group’s request on Monday to deny Kennedy ballot access in New York.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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