While Donald Trump rails against mail-in ballots as a scam by Democrats to cheat in the 2020 presidential election, the dirty tricks of the Republican Party to subvert the election continue. After Trump’s party was busted for actively putting rapper Kanye West on the ballot in states where they believed they could siphon black voters from the Democratic Party, they’ve now been blocked from doing the same with fake Green Party candidates.
Green Party candidates for key congressional races will likely not appear on Montana ballots this fall after the US Supreme Court declined to take up an emergency petition from the state's Republican secretary of state https://t.co/QQCJ4ArdNh
— CNN (@CNN) August 25, 2020
In Montana, signatures on petitions to get Green Party candidates on the ballot were ordered to be removed after signers learned that they had been lied to about the support behind those candidates. Far from being endorsed by the Montana Green Party, those candidates were strategically pushed by the Republican Party to take votes from Democratic candidates.
According to the Associated Press:
‘The ruling came less than a week after the state Supreme Court upheld an Aug. 7 ruling by district Judge James Reynolds that granted the requests of more than 560 people to remove their names from ballot petitions after they learned the Republican Party had bankrolled the $100,000 signature-gathering effort and violated finance laws by not reporting the spending.
‘Republican Secretary of State Corey Stapleton filed a motion Monday to halt the state Supreme Court order. It was denied by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.’
Justice Kagan DENIES application to stay our court victory in Montana. @GOP dirty tricks to confuse the Montana ballot FAILS! pic.twitter.com/qXqlgi1WZC
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) August 25, 2020
The Democratic Party and signers of the petition took their case to court, where a judge already ruled in their favor. Appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, Justice Elena Kagan upheld the earlier ruling and stopped the GOP diversion tactic.
‘The U.S. Supreme Court filing came after the state Supreme Court issued an expedited ruling on Aug. 19 upholding the ruling from Reynolds that granted the requests of over 560 people to remove their names from petitions after they learned the Montana Green Party did not support the effort.’
Montana’s Supreme Court issued an order removing Green Party candidates from the state’s November ballot after allegations of fraudulent GOP-funded Green Party petition drives. Montana’s GOP secretary of state is asking SCOTUS to block that order. https://t.co/DEThfumhRd
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) August 24, 2020
Sandi Luckey, the Montana Democratic Party Executive Director, spoke to reporters, laying out the reason that the vote was the right one ahead of a contentious and bitterly-fought election season.
‘Today the United States Supreme Court dealt the latest blow to the Montana GOP’s massive fraudulent effort to mislead Montana voters and tamper with our elections.’
“On August 25, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan denied any relief in the Montana Secretary of State’s request to reinstate the Green Party.” https://t.co/l6lxWdFclc
— Bill Scher (@billscher) August 25, 2020
