Green Rainbow Party rallies signature gatherers to qualify for Nov. 7 ballot
Their support is but a blip on the radar screen. But strategists are keeping a close eye on the Green Rainbow Party in this year's election for governor because votes for Green Rainbow candidate Grace Ross could cut into the major parties' candidacies.
But now comes word that Green Rainbow Party candidates have expressed concern that the party will not gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
``Our future as a credible player -- certainly at the state level -- is at stake," said a July 7 e-mail signed by the party's four candidates for statewide office. ``A major failure at the state level will have implications for our credibility at the local level as well."
The e-mail said that an ``optimistic count" put the number of signatures gathered at around 2,500. Candidates for governor need 10,000 certified signatures to make the ballot, and candidates for secretary of state and treasurer need 5,000.
Earlier this month, the party postponed its state convention so that signature gatherers could focus on catching up.
The party has until Aug. 1 to submit its signatures to local election officials, who have until Aug. 22 to make sure they are valid.
The certified signatures must be filed with the secretary of state's office by Aug. 29 in order to qualify for the Nov. 7 ballot.
The party's four statewide candidates -- Ross for governor, Wendy Van Horne for lieutenant governor, Jill Stein for secretary of state, and James O'Keefe for treasurer -- are collecting signatures as a slate, so each signature counts for each of the candidates.
In the July e-mail, party officials said they had hoped to collect twice as many as required to allow for signatures that do not check out properly during the certification process.
``So you can see we have a ways to go, and must pick up the pace many times over," the e-mail said.
Ross had $22.60 in her campaign account as of July 15 , according to her financial filings with the state.
In an interview last week, Ross said she was not concerned.
A grass-roots party operating on a shoestring budget often loses track of the number of signature collectors, she said, adding that two part-time staff members hired by Keefe and Stein were spending most of their time on the signature drive.
``We have, I would say, and I'm really guesstimating, around 6,000 to 7,000" signatures, she said.
Stein downplayed the dire tone of the note, saying it had been meant to ``help jolt people into reality." She said it was impossible to be more specific about how many signatures the party had obtained so far because the petitions were scattered across the state, but that in 2002, party leaders were also worried about their signatures but wound up with around 17,000 for the statewide races.
``I'm confident, to tell you the truth, that we're going to qualify," she said.
Technically, the Green Rainbow Party is not a party in the state's eyes, but rather a ``political designation." The state downgraded the Green Rainbow Party's status after the 2004 election, when the party's candidate for president fell short of winning 3 percent of the vote, the required threshold for a political organization to be considered a party.
LISA WANGSNESS 
