After hours of work by both volunteers and paid petition circulators, the Arizona Green Party will be a recognized political party on the 2008 ballot.
The Secretary of State's office announced Wednesday that the Green Party will join the Libertarian, Democratic and Republican parties on the Arizona ballot for the September primary and November general elections, according to the Secretary's Web site.
For the Sept. 2 election, the Green Party will receive its own primary ballot, and for the Nov. 4 general election, the Green Party's candidate will have a column on the ballot.
The Green Party supports environmental sustainability, social justice and nonviolence, among other platforms.
After collecting more than 22,500 valid signatures, a process that took more than a year to complete, the Green Party filed the signatures with county recorders' offices throughout the state on March 6, said the party's state co-chair, Angel Torres.
"This is the third time we've received ballot status [in Arizona]," Torres said. The Arizona Green Party was founded in May 1990, and received ballot status 1992 and again in 2000.
To stay on the ballot for the next election cycle, the Green Party will have to receive 5 percent of the vote in a statewide race or register almost four times as many Green voters as there are now, Torres said.
"To go out there and get 30,000 signatures is quite a chore," he said. "It took many, many hours of petitioning."
Volunteers and paid petitioners gathered signatures at community events, at festivals, in front of libraries and on campus at ASU. About 50 people petitioned for the Green Party on a regular basis, and close to 100 people in total assisted with the petitioning process, Torres said.
In 1996 and 2004, the party made an effort to get ballot access but came up short. Torres said the Green Party's petitioners were simply "burned out," and to petition successfully, it either takes a lot of time or a lot of money.
Dakota DiSanto, a secondary education sophomore and member of the ASU Campus Greens, gathered about 100 signatures herself and said that she's excited that the Green Party will be on the ballot later this year.
"It's relieving, because we worked so hard," she said.
"I think it's great that when people go to vote, they'll have another choice," DiSanto said. "It's really important for democracy."
Reach the reporter at: leigh.munsil@asu.edu.
