The Green movement is founded on grassroots democracy, ecological wisdom, peace, and social and economic justice. The Pacific Green Party of Oregon is more than thirty years old. We started as the anti-war Pacific Party.
Ballot access is political power
Major political decisions are made by the winners of elections. The decisions are made to benefit their backers. The better you perform in elections, the more influence you have. Oregon Greens have a long record of ballot access and running candidates.
Until recently, we were required to maintain our ballot access by polling at least 1% in a statewide race. This can be President, Governor, or any of several other offices. We could also qualify by having at least 0.5% of the registered voters, which is a little over 15,000. However, we peaked at around 13,000 and didn’t quite qualify automatically.
Things are different now
In 2022, a law was passed in Salem to lower that qualifying threshold to 0.25%. We currently have 0.26%, so now we’re above it. And the farther above it we get, the more secure our ballot access will be.
Of course, we will still run as many candidates as possible. But now the pressure is off just a bit. We don’t have to run somebody for, say, Secretary of State who would rather run for US House, just because we need that statewide result. Now we can more freely target the ballot races where we’ll have the most influence.
Let’s keep it that way! You can help by joining us now. Change to Pacific Green today!