Some good news for Greens in Arizona.

When last we heard, the Green Party of Arizona had missed the 1 June 2016 deadline to provide their list of electors to be sent to the Electoral College, in the event that Jill Stein should win the General Election in Arizona. That missed deadline meant that, although Jill Stein (or more generally, the Green Party candidate) is already qualified to be on the November ballot, there were no electors proposed to be sent to the Electoral College on her behalf if she wins the election here. NOTE: our method of choosing a president is somewhat fcked up.

Today, I saw an article saying that the Arizona Green party is suing the State of Arizona for... well, something. The article is on "Courthouse News" dot com, and is titled "Green Party Sues Arizona for Ballot Access". The good news is that the article quotes Matt Roberts, a spokeman for the Arizona Secretary of State, who says

"It's my understanding that we will enter into an agreement with the Party to accept their electors late and from what I understand the court will bless off on it. We've been happy to work with the Party to avoid a negative situation."

So before we go further, know that the State of Arizona appears willing to help the Arizona Green Party to propose electors to send to the College of Electors, in the event that Jill Stein (who is already going to be on the November ballot) wins the General Election in Arizona. Let's all take a deep breath now.

Everything else in that article, up to the final paragraph in which the sentence quoted above appears (and which sentence is in fact the last sentence of the article) is very troubling. The article begins with this sentence:

Arizona law unconstitutionally requires political parties to file their presidential nominating papers more than 90 days in advance of a primary election, the Arizona Green Party claims in court.

The entire article is written as if the Green Party candidate is not going to be on the November ballot. This is not true. The missed deadline had to do with the electors only, although given the process we have, the electors are quite important. In Arizona, we vote for the electors at the primary election (in August this year); the candidates for the Presidency are chosen in the Presidential Preference Election held in the spring. Jill Stein's paperwork for the Presidential Preference Election was filed on time. And by the way, Jill Stein won that preference election for her party.

The idea that anything "unconstitutional" happened here is presented as fact, but it is not a fact, but may be an issue to be decided by the nine eight wise souls, if this mess ever gets to SCOTUS. Arizona is not the only state where electors are chosen by the voters, but I hear that in other states they are chosen by the party machine(s). It is left as an exercise for the reader to determine which method is more "constitutional" and better preserves our 14^th amendment rights (mentioned in the article).

The article next confuses electors (to the electoral college) with delegates (to the national conventions), noting that the Green Party convention (to which delegates will be sent) takes place 4-7 August (prior to the primary election of electors). And note that we have not been asked to choose delegates to the convention; I guess the party machine is in charge of that, and that apparently has no effect on my rights as a voter for the Green Party candidate. (Irony noted there.)

The article next goes on to complain that the Arizona Secretary of State did not send them the forms and reminders of the due dates.

The first time Reagan informed the party of the deadline to file its nomination papers for its presidential and vice-presidential candidates was the same day they were due, June 1, the lawsuit says.

"Yet, even at that late date, the Arizona Secretary of State's Elections Office had not sent the Arizona Green Party the correct and updated nomination papers forms to complete to meet the June 1, 2016, deadline, and the updated forms could not be located on the Arizona Secretary of State's website," the complaint claims.

All of the necessary forms are available on the Arizona Secretary of State website here, and the schedule of due dates is on the same site, here. They even publish there a handy booklet Running for U.S. President in Arizona: A Candidate Guide (pdf).

The Democratic, Republican and Libertarian Parties all submitted their lists of proposed electors by the due date. Of those, only the Libertarian Party has had its national convention. So apparently the Democrats and Republicans are in the same boat as the Greens regarding the dates of their conventions vis a vis the due date for elector nominations. And yet those other two parties each did submit their slate of electors, probably because they know the difference between electors and delegates.

Would it have mattered had the Greens been given special due date notifications and had the forms (available online) hand-delivered to them, given that they can't tell the difference between delegates and electors anyway? When running a campaign for President of the United States, exactly how much hand-holding should one expect from the various state-level governments? This is not the arena for amateurs.

OK, sorry for the rant. The tl/dr version is:

The AZ Secretary of State is willing to work with the AZ Green Party to get their electors placed on the August primary ballot.

and that's good news. A separate takeaway may be that the people in charge of running a campaign should make themselves familiar with state laws regarding running for office for the particular state they're working in, and if they decide to sue the State, they should get an attorney who is familiar with those laws, too.

Oh, and also: our method of choosing a president is somewhat fcked up.