The North Carolina State Board of Elections on Thursday rejected a request to recognize the Green Party as an official party in the state, citing an ongoing fraud investigation related to a petition process used to get party candidates onto state ballots for the November general election.
The request, which was voted down 3-2, also would have let voters register as affiliated with the Green Party. North Carolina voters can currently only register as unaffiliated or as members of the Democratic, Libertarian, or Republican parties.
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"This is an outrageous unethical ruling and an insult to democracy,” Tony Ndege, the co-chairman of the North Carolina Green Party. “Our elections are reduced to who can we kick out of the polls or off the ballot by any means necessary."
Under state law, political parties seeking ballot recognition must get a sufficient number of registered voters to sign petitions.
The Green Party surpassed the 13,865 signatures required for recognition. But Pat Gannon, a spokesman for the elections board, said there were “significant irregularities in the petition process.”
Several counties and staff members of the state elections board identified red flags, including signatures that appeared to be written by the same person, the indication that workers were paid for each signature obtained, voters on signature sheets who claimed they never signed the petition, and a number of deceased voters or individuals long removed from the voter rolls, according to the elections board.
State elections officials in 2018 recognized the Green Party as a political party, but the Green Party lost its recognition after failing to capture 2% of the vote in the 2020 presidential and gubernatorial general elections, causing former Green Party registrants to be moved to an unaffiliated status in 2021.