10,960 Signatures

Last night, we were up counting and sorting our petitions to qualify the first Green-endorsed ticket for governor and lieutenant governor in Ohio history. As I write this morning at a little after 8am, Anita Rios and I have 10,960 signatures. 5,000 are required. Tim Kettler, the Green candidate for secretary of state, who worked so diligently on the recount in Coshocton County, phoned early to tell me he had over 9,000 signatures and will file with me as well, at 1pm today at J. Kenneth Hackwell’s office.

So, if you’re not doing anything at 1pm today, join us at the Borden building at the corner of 4th and Broad in downtown Columbus and help us make history. A press conference will follow immediately after the filing of petitions at the secretary of state’s office in the Borden building.

Under Ohio law, which is, like many Ohio laws, unfair and ludicrous, the Democrats and Republicans running for statewide office only had to get 1,000 signatures to get on the ballot, while “other party candidates” have to get five times as many signatures. And, under Ohio law, the Democrats and Republicans at the county Boards of Elections get to jointly verify our signatures without our presence. In Ohio, we have a two-party system, only slightly better than a dictatorship. And for every dollar the wealthy send the Republicans, they flip a 50-cent piece to the Democrats. Because they’re beholden to the same corporate money and studies indicate 1 percent of the population gives 90 percent of the money to political candidates, there’s very little real policy debate in Ohio, or the nation in general.Our unprecedented grassroots effort sends a clear signal to both major parties that people are fed up with the bipartisan collusion of the two major parties and their kowtowing to corporate interests. Both parties allow our jobs to be shipped to China and other repressive regimes that torture and deny human rights, while at the same time remaining silent on our own illegitimate Bush regime that practices torture, conducts warrantless searches, and continues to wage immoral and illegal war in Iraq.

Let me thank and praise all the grassroots volunteers who have made this filing possible, particularly Judith Powell, my petition coordinator, who never lost faith, Margie Daffey, Kenny Schweickart, Don Gibson, Logan Martinez, Tim Bruce, Victoria Lovegren and all the other Greens, independents and progressives who helped throughout the state of Ohio. The battle for the soul of the Buckeye States begins today.