Wayne County (MI) Board of Elections leaves Green Party candidates off ballot

Green Party of Michigan
http://www.migreens.org
Press Release

For Immediate Distribution
October 22, 2010


Wayne County Board of Elections leaves Green Party candidates off ballot;

Voters denied opportunity to hear Green program for jobs


Detroit – Wayne County Board of Elections did not place Green Party candidates Dianne Feeley for County Commissioner, 5th district and Louis Novak, County Commissioner 6th district on ballots already distributed to absentee voters.

The Green Party will hold a press conference, Monday, 11 am, in front of the City-County Building, to discuss further steps and to offer our Green program for jobs and economic recovery.

On August 2, per state law, the Green Party submitted the names of five candidates wholly within Wayne County for the November 2 election ballot. They were George Corsetti, US Congress 13th district, Fred Vitale, State Representative, 3rd district, Derek Grigsby, State Representative 7th district, and County Commissioner candidates Feeley and Novak. The candidates discovered the error when they received the sample ballot in the mail last week.

It is likely a clerical error, but it is still costly for the county. According to a supervisor at the Board, ballots for both districts will be reprinted and all absentee voters will receive another, corrected ballot for revoting. It is not clear how the office will ensure that all absentee voters have time to mark a corrected ballot. The number of absentee voters in these districts numbers in the thousands and it is 12 days to the elections.

The error has political consequences too. Candidates were not offered the opportunity to participate in the various public forums for their races because they were not on the ballot, reducing further the limited opportunities available to candidates who do not take corporate money.

More importantly, many voters have not been given the opportunity to hear about Green candidates, who offer a popular alternative to the major parties and the “tea party’s” bleatings for the past. Green Party candidates have a vision of economic justice – stop the sheriff’s office foreclosures; tax the richest 1% who have benefited from the crisis and use the money to put our people back to work.

Greens are fighting for social justice -- radically revise jail procedures to help young men find jobs and a place for themselves in the community; stop giving away our water resources and develop a county-wide response to global-warming, including energy audits, bicycle lanes and alternative forms of energy. Greens propose to use county resources to develop with our communities the truth about our county’s economic situation, to counter the lies of the corporate mainstream media, and, by doing so, help us all work together.

For more information, please contact, Fred Vitale, Green Party of Michigan Co-chair at 313-580-4905 or Derek Grigsby, chair of the Detroit Greens, at 313-706-2985 Or visit http://www.migreens.org