The Green Party Fails To Qualify For The Texas Ballot

In the state of Texas, a political party qualifies for a place on the statewide ballot if they got 5% of the vote in any statewide race in the previous election. In 2016, only three political parties accomplished that -- the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the Libertarian Party. The libertarians squeaked by getting 5.3% of the vote in a race for Railroad Commissioner.

For the first time in several elections, the Green Party failed to get 5% in any statewide race. That meant they had to get 50,000 valid signatures on a petition to get on the ballot -- and those signatures had to be from people who did not vote in either the Democratic or Republican primaries. They failed to do that, and that means they will not be on the Texas ballot in November.

The Green Party's candidate for governor, Jan Richards, has said she will be running as a write-in candidate -- and possibly some other Green Party candidates will do the same. But write-in candidates get notoriously few votes, and that means it is extremely unlikely they will qualify for the 2020 ballot. They will again have to go the petition route, and that might be very difficult in a year where most voters will be concerned with either re-electing or ousting Donald Trump (and will therefore be supporting one of the two major parties).

Will the Green Party ever get back on the Texas ballot? I think they will, but it will probably have to wait until Trump is gone and the political process returns to more normality.