After Forced Off Montana Ballots, Green Party Claims They Will Go Back to Court
On Monday, July 9, Helena District Judge James Reynolds ordered the Montana Secretary of State to remove the Green Party from ballots before the November elections. Montana Green Party Coordinator Danielle Breck says she was surprised by the decision, which she expected to go the other way.
"I was completely caught off guard," Breck said, "It seems silly. They removed us from the ballot because the democrats paid people to go through all of the signatures and find the few that might be questionable... and then we were removed for 43 of those, the other 7,300 ballot signatures didn't matter."
Secretary of State Corey Stapleton might choose to appeal the case, but even if he doesn’t Breck says the Green Party will be back in court soon.
"We are certainly going back to court in one manner or another, we are still working on our strategy, we don't know exactly how we are going to move forward, there is some question about whether we can appeal, because we were just an 'interested party' [in the recently decided case], our best way forward might be to file suit separately on constitutional grounds."
The Green Party will have to move quick if they want to be on the ballot, Montana ballots are scheduled to be certified on August 23rd.