https://www.newsobserver.com/ <-- everything I said in my comment is covered on article’s in this NC news outlet. They have about 5 articles that cover what I wrote and their journalists do a good job providing sources/citations.
tl;dr Matthew Hoh and the NC Green Party got caught hiring a petitioning firm with a long reputation of election fraud and hundreds of petition signatures were thrown out for being fraudulent. Dems went HAM and called all the people whose names were on the signature list, urging them to vote for Dems instead of Greens. Hoh and the Green Party get disqualified by the NC State Board of Elections (SBoE) for fraudulent signatures, and they appeal it.
Fast forward and now their disqualification was successfully appealed and the NC SBoE now accepts them on the (now expired) ballot. What changed? Well… the criteria for why they were disqualified, apparently. The NC SBoE initially disqualified the Green Party after a sampling of signatures revealed a percentage of fraudulent signatures and irregularities that would meet the threshold for disqualification. In the appeals court, they basically said "okay okay so SOME of the signatures were blatantly fraudulent and yes you just happened to have hired a petitioning firm with a long history of election fraud, BUT none of that matters because excluding the disputed signatures, you still meet the minimum level of signatures required to be on the ballot." The appeal succeeds, Green Party then cites that in order to successfully sue the DSCC, and they claim vindication while saying jack shit about the fraudulent signatures.
Now ask yourself, does that make any fucking sense? To me, it makes no sense whatsoever and it reeks of political fuckery by a party with a long history of trying to siphon votes from Dems so they can be useful idiots for Republicans.
The Democratic Party has been ordered to pay the North Carolina Green Party’s legal fees due to ‘frivolous’ and ‘unreasonable’ intervention in the third party’s battle for ballot access in 2022.
^ This one. What I wrote to you was my (poor) attempt at a briefer version that is missing the answer to your question-- which I did address in the above linked comment that I made to another user. The criteria used to disqualify the Green Party (X amount of fraudulent signatures in their petition to have Hoh added to the ballot) was completely disregarded by the appellate court, who took the bizarre approach of completely disregarding the blatantly fraudulent signatures and instead basically said "okay well even without the fraudulent votes, they still have enough for their candidate to qualify". This flies in the face of the original NC SBoE (state board of elections) decision and doesn’t even address the root problem-- fraudulent votes, and why the NC Green Party had enough to get initially disqualified.
The other issue is that the Green Party just happened to have hired a petitioning firm that has a long history of election fraud. The owner/operator was convicted of election fraud in 2011 and in 2022 became the subject of an investigation regarding election fraud in Michigan. This was brought up by the Dems and the DSCC in their legal action and it was just inexplicably not addressed at all in court. Instead, it was just dismissed/downplayed as nothing more than a baseless political accusation.
I’m glad you responded with your comment because IMO it highlights exactly how effective the Green Party’s smarmy tactics are. People understandably read the headlines and are often not aware of the missing links that can only be put together if you read several articles about the issue from different periods of time. I’ve been following the Matt Hoh thing from the start and I’ve seen the PDFs of the fraudulent signatures-- it’s fucking clown show level fraud, like the kind of forged signatures you might see as an elementary school teacher from a bratty student. Personally, I don’t believe for a second that the Green Party did absolutely no vetting of the petitioning firm they chose-- I think they 100% were aware of the owner’s past and present election fraud and that’s exactly why they chose that specific firm out of countless others with a far better reputation.
I read the court docket. The fraudulent signatures are irrelevant because they exceeded the threshold, and were done by contracted third parties. The candidates appeared on the ballot, and lost.
The fraudulent signatures are irrelevant because they exceeded the threshold, and were done by contracted third parties.
How are the fraudulent signatures irrelevant? They were obtained by a firm hired by the Green Party whose owner was convicted of election fraud in VA and is currently on trial for election fraud in MI? I find it hard to believe that the Green Party was approached by this guy (whose record is plainly available to the public), did absolutely no vetting, and entrusted him with one of the most important parts of getting their candidate on the ballot. Shawn Wilmoth, the owner of the firm contracted by the Green Party, has multiple complainants who will testify against him in the MI fraud trial-- none of which are Green Party candidates. Same with NC and every other state his firm operated in-- lots of fraud, but Green Party candidates for some strange reason never take him to court. I suspect it’s because doing so would involve mutual disclosure that would reveal that the Green Party did know if Wilmoth’s reputation and that’s precisely why they wanted him. When you know your candidate is going to lose and you’re just in it to spoil an election, who cares if there’s some fallout afterwards?
Matthew Martucci, the NC SBoE’s lead investigator stated
“The Investigation Division elevated the Green Party investigation as a potentially
criminal matter with high priority due to observing a pattern of petition pages
submitted containing what appeared to be noticeably fraudulent signatures”
This pattern isn’t mentioned anywhere in the court decision, and is part of why I question the seemingly selective omissions in the decision. Every legitimate candidate that got burned by Shawn Wilmoth is taking his ass to court, meanwhile Green Party candidates aren’t taking legal action nor are they explaining to their voters why they’re just letting some fraud get away with the thousands of dollars they gave him.
I second the call for sources, that is very interesting.
Check my reply below.
https://www.newsobserver.com/ <-- everything I said in my comment is covered on article’s in this NC news outlet. They have about 5 articles that cover what I wrote and their journalists do a good job providing sources/citations.
tl;dr Matthew Hoh and the NC Green Party got caught hiring a petitioning firm with a long reputation of election fraud and hundreds of petition signatures were thrown out for being fraudulent. Dems went HAM and called all the people whose names were on the signature list, urging them to vote for Dems instead of Greens. Hoh and the Green Party get disqualified by the NC State Board of Elections (SBoE) for fraudulent signatures, and they appeal it.
Fast forward and now their disqualification was successfully appealed and the NC SBoE now accepts them on the (now expired) ballot. What changed? Well… the criteria for why they were disqualified, apparently. The NC SBoE initially disqualified the Green Party after a sampling of signatures revealed a percentage of fraudulent signatures and irregularities that would meet the threshold for disqualification. In the appeals court, they basically said "okay okay so SOME of the signatures were blatantly fraudulent and yes you just happened to have hired a petitioning firm with a long history of election fraud, BUT none of that matters because excluding the disputed signatures, you still meet the minimum level of signatures required to be on the ballot." The appeal succeeds, Green Party then cites that in order to successfully sue the DSCC, and they claim vindication while saying jack shit about the fraudulent signatures.
Now ask yourself, does that make any fucking sense? To me, it makes no sense whatsoever and it reeks of political fuckery by a party with a long history of trying to siphon votes from Dems so they can be useful idiots for Republicans.
Then why did they lose in court?
I mentioned this in my original comment. I think I worded my response to you poorly.
When I said “Check out my reply”, I meant check out my reply below in the thread.
https://lemmy.ml/post/19841605/13414777
^ This one. What I wrote to you was my (poor) attempt at a briefer version that is missing the answer to your question-- which I did address in the above linked comment that I made to another user. The criteria used to disqualify the Green Party (X amount of fraudulent signatures in their petition to have Hoh added to the ballot) was completely disregarded by the appellate court, who took the bizarre approach of completely disregarding the blatantly fraudulent signatures and instead basically said "okay well even without the fraudulent votes, they still have enough for their candidate to qualify". This flies in the face of the original NC SBoE (state board of elections) decision and doesn’t even address the root problem-- fraudulent votes, and why the NC Green Party had enough to get initially disqualified.
The other issue is that the Green Party just happened to have hired a petitioning firm that has a long history of election fraud. The owner/operator was convicted of election fraud in 2011 and in 2022 became the subject of an investigation regarding election fraud in Michigan. This was brought up by the Dems and the DSCC in their legal action and it was just inexplicably not addressed at all in court. Instead, it was just dismissed/downplayed as nothing more than a baseless political accusation.
I’m glad you responded with your comment because IMO it highlights exactly how effective the Green Party’s smarmy tactics are. People understandably read the headlines and are often not aware of the missing links that can only be put together if you read several articles about the issue from different periods of time. I’ve been following the Matt Hoh thing from the start and I’ve seen the PDFs of the fraudulent signatures-- it’s fucking clown show level fraud, like the kind of forged signatures you might see as an elementary school teacher from a bratty student. Personally, I don’t believe for a second that the Green Party did absolutely no vetting of the petitioning firm they chose-- I think they 100% were aware of the owner’s past and present election fraud and that’s exactly why they chose that specific firm out of countless others with a far better reputation.
I read the court docket. The fraudulent signatures are irrelevant because they exceeded the threshold, and were done by contracted third parties. The candidates appeared on the ballot, and lost.
How are the fraudulent signatures irrelevant? They were obtained by a firm hired by the Green Party whose owner was convicted of election fraud in VA and is currently on trial for election fraud in MI? I find it hard to believe that the Green Party was approached by this guy (whose record is plainly available to the public), did absolutely no vetting, and entrusted him with one of the most important parts of getting their candidate on the ballot. Shawn Wilmoth, the owner of the firm contracted by the Green Party, has multiple complainants who will testify against him in the MI fraud trial-- none of which are Green Party candidates. Same with NC and every other state his firm operated in-- lots of fraud, but Green Party candidates for some strange reason never take him to court. I suspect it’s because doing so would involve mutual disclosure that would reveal that the Green Party did know if Wilmoth’s reputation and that’s precisely why they wanted him. When you know your candidate is going to lose and you’re just in it to spoil an election, who cares if there’s some fallout afterwards?
Matthew Martucci, the NC SBoE’s lead investigator stated
“The Investigation Division elevated the Green Party investigation as a potentially criminal matter with high priority due to observing a pattern of petition pages submitted containing what appeared to be noticeably fraudulent signatures”
This pattern isn’t mentioned anywhere in the court decision, and is part of why I question the seemingly selective omissions in the decision. Every legitimate candidate that got burned by Shawn Wilmoth is taking his ass to court, meanwhile Green Party candidates aren’t taking legal action nor are they explaining to their voters why they’re just letting some fraud get away with the thousands of dollars they gave him.