Greens get green light to put candidate names on IA ballot

Another party will be represented on the presidential ballot in Iowa this November. On Tuesday, the Green Party qualified for the fall election, and Green vice presidential candidate Pat LaMarche turned in 2000 petition signatures to Iowa’s Commissioner of Elections, enough to put her, presidential candidate David Cobb, and several other Green Party Iowa candidates on the ballot. LaMarche, who pronounces her name luh-MARSH, says the Green Party agenda is “very different” from the two major parties and will run what LaMarsche calls a “clean” election without campaign financing from big donors who may not have the best interests on the American people at heart. LaMarche says contributors who wield that kind of power have their OWN interests at heart, not those of families, students, the elderly or anyone else. She says the Green Party favors universal healthcare, a living wage that’s more than just a minimum wage, and they want to end the war in Iraq. She says “we love our troops and we’d like ’em to come home.” She dismisses concerns that a vote for a third-party candidate could sway the balance for or against one of the two leading party contenders for the presidency in a direction voters might not anticipate. She says there should be campaign election reform and someone should find out why nobody in the last four years has fixed the problems that plagued the election of 2000. LaMarche says Florida didn’t pass any new election laws or stop officials from purging voters from the registration rolls after problems were found with its voting system. She says we should get rid of the Electoral College and instaed have “instant runoff” voting. Also, rather than checking off one candidate you like people would vote for their first, second, third and fourth priority. If one candidate didn’t have a clear majority, she says we’d go to the second, or third preference until someone did show a clear majority. LaMarche and the Iowa Green Party candidates plan to campaign in the Quad Cities today (Wednesday).