On Monday, a Nevada judge tossed a Democrat-backed lawsuit aimed at keeping Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein off the state’s 2024 ballot.
“We have prevailed against the legal challenge from the Nevada Democratic Party!” Stein wrote on X. “We are excited to say that the ruling has been made in our favor and we will offer an anti-genocide, pro-worker, climate action choice for Silver State voters!”
The entire saga began in June, when the Nevada Democratic Party filed a lawsuit alleging the Green Party did not gather enough valid signatures in each of the Silver State’s congressional districts required to appear on the November ballot.
According to local media, the left-leaning third party “turned in nearly 30,000 signatures for ballot access — far more than the required 10,000.” The office of Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, determined 14,821 of those submitted signatures were “valid,” and subsequently declared the Green Party eligible for ballot access.
Writing for the First Judicial District Court of Nevada in and for Carson City, Judge Kristin Luis determined that Nevada Democrats did not meet the necessary burden of proof demonstrating how the petition submitted by the Greens “is clearly invalid.”
Plaintiffs have “not produced sufficient evidence to show that the petition has less than the required number of valid signatures in any petition district,” Luis wrote. “… The Court therefore finds that the Democratic Party did not meet its burden to show that the Green Party failed to substantially comply