This statement was originally posted at www.matthewhohforsenate.org/hoh-slams-democratic-partys-voter-intimidation-campaign/ and includes links to some media coverage, though the media coverage is biased against third parties. Democratic Party operatives are reportedly making harassing phone calls, sending text messages, and going to people's homes to pressure them to rescind their signatures on petitions requesting that the NC Green Party be granted state recognition, so that it can appear on ballots in the same way as the Democratic and Republican parties, what the local NPR station calls the "headline contenders." Apparently it is very unusual for a bourgeois democracy such as the USA to have this kind of first and second class treatment of political parties, among other US electoral oddities ( cosmonautmag.com/2022/06/the-long-crisis-of-democracy/ ), and North Carolina was one of the more restrictive states until recently, at least in part to prevent Marxist and left parties from ever again gaining ballot access, and it still isn't easy to get on to the ballot here. The operatives have also impersonated Greens. People who receive this harassment are encouraged to report it to the campaign or to the NCGP. Apparently the Elias Law Group, lead by Marc Elias, general counsel for Hillary Clinton in 2016, John Kerry in 2004, among other Democratic Party groups and a key figure in promoting the Democrats' "Russiagate" conspiracy theory, received the petition documents from the State Board of Elections, working for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. This action is apparently about the 2022 Senate race and 2024, but if successful would prevent any Green candidate from being listed as a Green on the ballot, assuming they could run at all, and the Democratic Party portrays itself as the defender of "our democracy" (or should that be "Democracy?") against Trump and the Republicans. County and State boards of election are also possibly intentionally dragging their feet on granting state recogntion to the NC Green Party. For State party recognition and ballot access, 13,865 signatures, or a quarter of 1% of the total number of voters in the last guberatorial election, are required, and the NCGP presented more than 22,500, and legally can't submit additional signatures at this point. There are allegations about the NCGP having worked with First Choice Contracting to gather signatures, but apparently the company collected only 109 signatures, and the NCGP itself rejected half of those and then ended its relationship with the company, months before news broke about allegations of fraudulent signatures in Michigan. It could be asked if this is the only plan the Democrats have to prevent Greens from even being able to run for office, local, State, or Federal, in NC.
Currently the US Senate race in North Carolina officially includes a Democrat, a Libertarian, and a Republican, while the Greens intend to run a candidate; I haven't heard about a candidate from the rightist NC Constitution Party, another party that lost ballot access in 2020 (the Libertarians might also have lost access then).
Matthew Hoh, Green for US Senate, Slams Democratic Party's Massive Voter Intimidation Campaign to Sabotage NC Green Party Ballot Drive
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday June 29, 2022
Contact: Rose Roby, Matthew Hoh for Senate Campaign Manager rose [at] matthewhohforsenate [org]
Today Matthew Hoh, who is seeking the North Carolina Green Party nomination for US Senate, condemned the Democratic Party for launching a massive and deceptive voter intimidation campaign attempting to bully North Carolina voters into removing their names from a petition to qualify the Green Party for ballot access.
“We’ve been hearing from folks across the state that they’re being bombarded with phone calls, text messages, and even people coming to their houses demanding to remove their signature from the Green Party petition,” said Rose Roby, Campaign Manager for Matthew Hoh. “We have recorded evidence of these callers falsely representing themselves as calling on behalf of the Green Party, while making misleading to outright false claims to pressure people to remove their names from a petition they already signed. Our campaign team has seen a lot of dirty tricks from the establishment parties over the years, but none of us has ever seen such a massive, deceitful, and shameless campaign of voter intimidation to try to sabotage a successful grassroots petition drive.”
As reported by the Raleigh News and Observer and CBS 17, after the Green Party submitted over 22,500 signatures, of which nearly 16,000 passed the rigorous county verification process, the Elias Law Group, headed by former general counsel for Hillary Clinton Marc Elias, demanded all documentation related to the petition drive from the State Board of Elections on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). Shortly after that, the DSCC began harassing petition signers with barrages of unsolicited phone calls, text messages, and even operatives showing up to their doors after they said they weren’t interested.
One such example is Janet Nagel, a petition signer who contacted the Hoh campaign after she received at least four unsolicited calls in one afternoon. According to Nagel, the caller “said she was calling for the Green Party” but then “launched into a diatribe about how voting for the Green Party would take votes from the Democrats.” When Nagel disagreed and pointed out that there are more unaffiliated voters than Democrats or Republicans, the caller replied: “So you would like to remove your name from the petition?”
Another recipient of the deceptive calls was Tony Ndege, Co-chair of the North Carolina Green Party, who recorded a caller who claimed multiple times that he was with the Green Party before asking Ndege to remove his name from the petition. After Ndege asked why the Green Party would want his signature removed from its ballot access petition, the call was abruptly hung up.
“It certainly appears to us, and to many concerned North Carolina voters who have gotten in touch with us, that the DSCC – aided and abetted by the Elias Law Group – is engaging in fraud, voter intimidation, an aggressive spamming campaign and even showing up at people’s houses trying to sabotage a hugely successful grassroots petition drive through intimidation and fraudulent representation.” said Roby. “It’s a shocking abuse of public records to harass voters and attempt to suppress political opposition.”
“This massive, dirty, and obviously well-funded voter intimidation scheme to undo the success of our grassroots petition drive shows how far the Democratic Party will go to prevent someone who actually represents working people from being on the ballot,” said Hoh, a disabled Marine combat veteran who resigned his post in 2009 to protest the escalating war in Afghanistan. “The establishment is terrified that Green Party organizers were able to succeed in clearing their ballot access hurdles, because they know that the people are hungry for a political movement that will deliver healthcare, housing, living wages, and a sustainable economy for all.”
“This blatant attack on democracy highlights the corporate Democratic Party’s utter hypocrisy, whether they’re claiming to fight for democracy, stand for working people, care about climate crisis, or any other of countless issues where their actions fly in the face of their rhetoric,” said Hoh. “The hardest thing I’ve ever seen the Democrats fight for is to keep a disabled Marine combat veteran off the ballot. But the Democratic establishment’s heavy-handed attack on our grassroots campaign will only inspire more and more people across North Carolina to stand with us as the only campaign fighting for working people, the planet, peace, and real democracy.”
The Matthew Hoh for Senate campaign encourages all North Carolina residents who are targeted by the Democratic Party’s voter intimidation campaign to contact the campaign about their experience at https://www.matthewhohforsenate.org/contact/
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