The 2020 presidential nominee for the Green Party will not appear atop election ballots in the state of Pennsylvania this year.
The state’s Supreme Court voted 5-2 along partisan lines on Thursday against Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins in a ruling that will keep the far-left political party off the state’s ballot.
Democratic Party activists alleged that Hawkins’s team filed affidavits that presented disqualifying irregularities. Among them, Democrats argued that the Green Party officials failed to submit the proper paperwork along with at least 5,000 voter signatures to appear on the ballot.
The two ranking Republican members of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court were the only dissenting votes in the ruling. They acknowledged that although Hawkins’s team had not followed the procedure perfectly, they still might be able to fix the mistakes retroactively.
The decision is seen as a win for 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who is attempting to swing the state blue after Trump claimed victory in 2016.
Hawkins, who ran for governor of New York in 2018, is leading the Green Party ticket in 2020 after Jill Stein won roughly 1% of the vote in 2016.
