Green Party Sues To Block Fake Candidates

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TEMPE, Ariz. — The Arizona Green Party is asking a judge to kick more than half of the group's nominees off the November ballot.

The unusual request, filed in federal court Monday, follows the nomination of 11 candidates allegedly recruited by Republican operatives to siphon votes from Democratic candidates.

Unless the judge intervenes, Arizona voters will be able to vote for a tarot card reader to be state treasurer or a street performer to regulate utilities.

It's all thanks to a little-known provision in state law that allows Green Party candidates to get the party's nomination with just one write-in vote. They don't even have to collect petition signatures.

The candidates say they're serious about changing government and energized to make their voices heard. Democrats claim they're being used as a dirty trick.

In legal filings that sought a swift hearing, the Green Party has labeled the group "sham candidates" and are asking a federal judge to oust them from the November ballot and strike down the obscure law that put them there with so little effort. Democrats have called for a criminal investigation.

"We in the Arizona Green Party want our team to play by the same rules as other teams, and not have somebody in the stands deciding to be a player on our team," party co-chair Claudia Ellquist said in a statement Tuesday.

The current law amounts to "our opponents recruiting field-rushers, and handing them a uniform, and sending them out to disrupt a fair game," Ellquist said.

Democrats and Greens say the 11 disputed candidates don't represent the Green Party and are being used as pawns.

"They're playing games with the voters," said Jennifer Johnson, an Arizona Democratic Party spokeswoman. "This is the ultimate disrespect to the voter, putting up sham candidates who don't represent the party that they're listed with."

Democrats say Green Party candidates attract left-leaning voters, making it tougher for Democrats to get elected.

Steve May, a former state lawmaker running for the Arizona House, acknowledges he helped some of the disputed candidates get on the ballot. He insists he's just trying to help them get their voices heard.

May, 38, lives and frequently hangs out near downtown Tempe's Mill Avenue — a commercial corridor near Arizona State University with an odd mix of chain restaurants, local bars and bohemian culture. His recruits are drifters who also like to hang out on Mill.

The shunned nominees don't like being labeled sham candidates. They insist they're real people with tangible concerns and a legitimate desire to help shape public policy.

"I don't care who I take votes from," said Anthony Goshorn, a 53-year-old state Senate candidate who pilots a pedicab and drives a taxi for a living. "I didn't do this to hurt a particular political party. I did this to help people."

Goshorn, a white-bearded veteran of Mill Avenue, is known as "Grandpa" to the younger drifters he mentors. He said he's frustrated that reporters always want to talk about the political party dispute or the fact that he's homeless.

He just wants to talk about the struggling economy and his desire for lower taxes.