🚀 go-pugleaf

From: Mike Feinstein <socalgreens>

/* Written  8:13 pm  Jun 10, 1994 by socalgreens@igc.apc.org in igc:gpty.news */
/* ---------- "NOTA WINS! Press Release 6/9/94" ---------- */
From: Mike Feinstein <socalgreens>

/* Written  1:21 pm  Jun  9, 1994 by capitolgp@igc.apc.org in igc:gpca.camp+cand */
/* ---------- "NOTA WINS! Press Release 6/9/94" ---------- */
The Associated Press and San Jose Mercury News both did good
pieces on the NOTA victory in today's papers. The attached
was authorized by Friends of Nobody:
		FRIENDS OF NOBODY

For Immediate Release
		 		 For more information, contact:
				Joe Louis Hoffman  (707) 744-1929


		"NONE OF THE ABOVE"
 		WINS GREEN PRIMARY

	For the first time in U.S. history, nobody has won a state-
wide election. "None of the Above" in Tuesday's election 
defeated three flesh- and-blood candidates in the Green Party of 
California's primary for governor.

	With 100% of precincts reporting, "None of the Above," or 
"NOTA," had garnered 46% of the vote in the Green Party 
primary for the state's top job. The nearest challenger, John 
Selawsky, received 21%. Selawsky became a candidate solely in 
order to use his statement in the ballot pamphlet to argue in favor 
of NOTA. The other two candidates in the race received 17% and 
16%. Only in the gubernatorial primary did NOTA win in 
Tuesday's balloting.

	"Nobody in the race earned people's votes, so people 
voted for nobody," said Joe Hoffman,  manager of  "Friends of 
Nobody,"  an organization that actively campaigned for NOTA. 
Hoffman who is a  long-time Green activist and the former 
coordinator of voter registration during the fledgling party's initial 
drive for party status, continued: "Now Greens can return to the 
job of electing city council, school board, water board members, 
doing voter registration... building the Party from the grassroots 
up. I believe that the strength and the future of the Green Party 
grows from strong local organizing, not symbolic campaigns."

	Many activists felt that a Green candidate might 
contribute to the re-election of Republican candidate Pete Wilson. 
Most Green locals throughout the state endorsed "None of the 
Above."

	In 1992, the Green Party challenged then-Secretary of 
State March Fong Eu in court to win the right to place "None of 
the Above"  on their primary election ballots. The Party's victory 
in that lawsuit marked the first time that NOTA has appeared as 
a binding option in an American election. Some states allow 
NOTA as a merely advisory, non-binding choice.

	Tony Miller, acting Secretary of State and winner of the 
Democratic primary for that office, said that NOTA "would give 
people a reason to go to the polls even if they didn't like the 
choices on the ballot, even if there was an incumbent with no 
challenger, with big name identification and a big treasury." Miller 
earlier this year asked the chairmen of the Senate and Assembly 
elections committees to consider introducing a law authorizing  
NOTA for all California state elections, but according to Miller, 
"...politicians don't think this is such a good idea." Miller called 
Tuesday's results "a good illustration of (NOTA's) potential."