Photo Credits: (c) 2016 Harold Michael Harvey
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, CASCADE PRESS (CP) Gray-haired, petite, with a head full of facts and ideas, and a clear plastic container of blueberries (brain food she would later explain) to help recall those ideas, Dr. Jill Stein is out to make history.
She is the presumptive nominee for President of the Green Party. Stein is poised to become the first, so-called, third party candidate in history to ever secure a listing on the General Election ballot in Georgia for President of the United States of America.
History records that only Republican or Democratic Party candidates have ever been listed on the ballot. But in March this year, federal court judge Richard W. Story ruled unconstitutional a Georgia law that required political organizations seeking to put a presidential candidate’s name on a statewide ballot to get signatures from one percent of registered voters.
In 2012, that figure was 50,334. In 2016 numbers, roughly 54,000 signatures would be necessary for a third party candidate. Story reduced that to a more manageable number. He ruled that 7,500 signatures on a petition would get a candidate’s name on the ballot.
The presumptive Green Party nominee came to Atlanta this week to rally supporters around a petition drive to have her name placed on the ballot.
According to Carrie Lou Williams, a 2016 Green Party delegate, Stein has secured a place on “40 of the 50 states’ ballots.” The Georgia Green Party believes she will gather enough signatures to be placed on the Georgia ballot.
The deadline for submitting signed petitions to Georgia’s Secretary of State is July 12. Green Party members plan to fan out across metro Atlanta during the upcoming Fourth of July holiday to secure the signatures. They will be working the crowd at Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, family gatherings out at Stone Mountain Park, Piedmont Park and the fire works display at Centennial Olympic Park.
If elected president, she will again make history as the first woman elected president. In order to achieve this date with destiny, Stein told an overflowing crowd at the historic Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) on the Atlanta University campus on Thursday that she had been in touch with members of Bernie Sanders’ campaign and that at least one Sanders’ staffer has been hired by the Stein campaign.
“What I like about the Sanders supporters is that they have a Facebook page in practically every state,” the presumptive Green Party nominee said.
Photo Credit: (c) Harold Michael Harvey
While in Atlanta, Stein secured the endorsement of Al Bartell, the 2017 Green Party candidate for Mayor of Atlanta. Bartel said it was “the first time in history that a Green Party mayoral candidate had endorsed a Green Party candidate for president.” These are historical political times and they are changing the American public policy landscape.
Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.