• What are they afraid of, the Greens?

Having recently spent over 30 hours in 3 days in a “virtual” court room, facing grueling testimony in regard to the Democrats’ challenge to our petition for the Green Party candidate for Governor of New Jersey, including threats by an over-zealous attorney of fraud and forgery (which should have been bridled back by the presiding Judge, but weren’t), I can only come to one conclusion.

First of all, I know the attorneys representing the Democratic Party of Morris County were not doing this work for free. This had to cost a pretty penny, both for the time in the “virtual” courtroom (again over 30 hours), and the preparation work that went on between Thursday, August 21st and the initiation of the “virtual” court room on Tuesday, August 26th at 1 PM.

Actually, we know more “back room” work went on after the initial filing of the challenge at 3:55 PM on Monday, August 25th (5 minutes before the challenge deadline) because of the poor quality of information included in the initial challenge, which was later replaced with a new “rendition” of the challenge on the morning of August 26th, which by the way included more challenges than were initially filed at the challenge deadline, something which should not have been allowed.

Why spend the time and money to, as I see it, have a candidate illegally removed from the ballot by having the rules bent by a rigged system… and then getting away with it?

The only answer I can come up with is that the Democrat Party of New Jersey has very little faith in the candidate that was chosen by their party (with a strong push by the party “bosses”) with less than a 35% plurality level.

I believe that the Democrats in this state realize their candidate, which more than 65% of Democrat voters who voted in the June primary, did not want to have running for Governor for their party, is very weak on the issues that the Green Party of New Jersey Candidate, Lily Benavides, is strongest on including recognizing that what is going on in Gaza and the West Bank is, in fact, genocide, and that the Palestinian people have been treated as less than human entities by the government and many citizens of Israel for decades. Ms. Benavides is also very strong in her opposition to the fascist tactics of ICE and supports the State of New Jersey filing suit to bring the new “brown shirts” put forth by the current federal regime, under the jurisdiction of the state, which is a state's right to do.

On the other hand, the Democrats have put forth a candidate who has voted enthusiastically in Congress to continue funding the murder of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza and the West Bank, and has never spoken of or supported a cease fire. On the topic of ICE, this candidate was nowhere to be found when other elected officials in New Jersey were attempting to stand up to the infiltrators, known as ICE, who are removing long standing, hard working, members of our communities.

So, do the Democrats have something to be afraid of? I would say yes. The only problem is that, by removing the only candidate from the ballot who is strong on the issues that many, many, citizens of New Jersey care about most, they have not fixed their problem. Those people will not be voting for the Democrat’s candidate either way. So it seems our friends at the Anti-Democracy Democrat Party have wasted their time and money in this case.

Here’s a novel idea. How about getting on the correct side of these critical issues?

Either way, the Green Party of New Jersey will continue to support our candidate for Governor, Lily Benavides, and will be campaigning just as strongly as if she were on the ballot (as she should be), but will be educating the people of New Jersey on how to do a write in candidate when voting for Governor of New Jersey.

Please contact us if you’d like to help, or if you are concerned that you might have been one of the people whose signature was disqualified, please contact Barry Bendar, Green Party of New Jersey Elections Chair at [email protected].

Sincerely,

Barry Bendar
Elections Chair
The Green Party of New Jersey