Big Sky Times

The Montana Democratic Party have filed a lawsuit seeking to remove Green Party candidates from the state’s general election Nov. 3, but a trial brief filed in the First Judicial Court of Lewis and Clark County reveals there's more at stake than signatures.

The Democratic Party, as well as four individual electors (Taylor Blosssom, Ryan Filz, Madeleine Neumeyer, and Rebecca Weed) alleged in their complaint that  they were “duped by the Montana Republican Party” and signed what they believed was a petition sponsored by Green Party supporters to select candidates through a primary election and get actual Green Party candidates on the general election ballot.  

That was not the case, according to the trial brief, which says that the petition drive was “a Republican and conservative effort to create false Montana Green Party candidates.” 

When Blossom, Filz, Neumeyer, Weed, and other Montana voters realized what happened, they asked to withdraw their names from the petition. The trial brief notes that “so many signers requested to withdraw their signatures that the petition can no longer qualify the Montana Green Party for ballot access.”

Plaintiffs say that Secretary of State Corey Stapleton has refused to remove hundreds of names from the petition, despite the removal requests being valid. Because of this, hundreds of Montana residents will be forced to associate with a petition that they signed under false pretenses.

If these signatures are not removed, petitioners say the Montana Republican Party will be rewarded for misleading conduct and that the signers will be associated with a political party they never wanted to support and a cause – siphoning Democratic votes – that they didn’t support.

The lawsuit alleges many of those who gathered signatures for the petition in question were not even Montana residents.  And, after the Montana Green Party raised awareness of this duplicity, reporters found that a political arm of a conservative super PAC in Washington, D.C., had filed paperwork to qualify as a minor political party for primary elections. The spokesman for the Club for Growth Action said they explored the possibility of undertaking the effort on behalf of the Montana Green Party but decided against it.    

The petitioners argue that the requests to remove signatures should be honored because they were submitted before the certificate of nomination was issued, and before final action on political party qualification took place.  The withdrawal requests are valid and must be given effect for the reason that plaintiffs and other petition signers requested to remove their names after learning that they signed the petition after they were given false representations about who sponsored the petition.

“But the Montana Republican Party effectively commandeered plaintiffs’ associational and expressive activity in order to serve its own political ends," the trial brief reads. "The Montana Republican Party did so by evading disclosure requirements, preventing plaintiffs from having any inkling that they were signing a Republican Party-sponsored petition before they signed it or for months later.” 

Plaintiffs asked the court to declare their withdrawal requests are valid and enjoin the secretary from giving any effect to the Montana Green Party petition.    

According to a June 4 report by Big Sky Times, Green Party candidate Dennis Daneke, who ran against Sen. Steve Daines and Gov. Steve Bullock for the same U.S. Senate seat, failed to secure the nomination. Daneke had publicly announced that he would resign had he won the nomination.