Due to a lack of voters who identify with the organization, the Green Party is no longer recognized as a political party in the state of Arizona.
The party lost its recognition after it failed to deliver 31,1686 signatures last month to keep its standing. Only about one-third of the required signatures were actually collected, according to AZCentral.
This means potential candidates cannot label themselves as running for the Green Party but they can run as independents in their own races. However, they’ll be required to get even more signatures than those who are connected and linked to a major party.
Since the Green Party was the only group that submitted a petition to be recognized, the only acknowledged parties in Arizona are the major three: Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians.
Although it looks clean-cut on paper, high school history and politics teacher Richard Stocking says the state’s decision to not recognize the Green Party could have dire impact. He detailed why this is bad for Arizona voters.
“We need a transparent government and transparent elections. We really can’t have that if political parties are not on the ballot. The second one is taking a political party off the ballot really limits the choices of registered voters,” he said during a conversation with KJZZ. “It really limits dissent among people that don’t agree with the two main political parties. People who disagree with Republicans or Democrats are really limited with what they have to say within our system.”
As for the downfall of the Green Party in Arizona, it appears the beginning of the end was the 2018 election when the party had a lower turnout. The Green Party’s candidate for governor, Angel Torres, received roughly 2 percent of the votes in 2018, and only 6,405 voters identified with the Green Party in October, only .17 percent of Arizona’s registered voters as a whole, according to AZCentral.
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