🚀 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 12:20 am  Jun 10, 1994 by socalgreens@igc.apc.org in igc:gpca.camp+cand */
/* ---------- "NOTA WINS! Press Release 6/9/94" ---------- */
Green Party of California
PO Box 480578, Los Angeles, CA 90048
(310) 314-7336


For Immediate Release

For more information, contact:
Joe Louis Hoffman  (707) 744-1929
Margaret Elysia Garcia  (310) 693-2784
Mike Feinstein  (310) 392-8450


"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" defeated three flesh-and-blood 
candidates in Tuesday's Green Party primary for governor. 

With 100% of precincts reporting, "None of the Above," or "NOTA," had 
garnered 46% of the vote.  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 is a long-time Northern 
California Green activist and former coordinator of the party's 
succesful voter registration/ballot status drive in 1990-1991.  

"Many activists felt that a Green candidate might contribute to the re-
election of Republican candidate Pete Wilson," said Mike Feinstein, 
Santa Monica, an LA County delegate to the party's January state 
convention in San Francisco.  "Most Green locals throughout the state 
that made endorsements, endorsed 'NOTA'.  We plan to address the issues 
in the governors race through our candidate for Lt. Governor, Daniel 
Moses."

"NOTA is an example of the Green Party promoting 'accountability' and 
'grassroots democracy'," said Margaret Garcia, Whittier, winner of the 
Green Party primary for Secretary of State.   "The Green Party envisons 
a society where people and communities have a far greater say over the 
decisions that affect them than they do today.  NOTA embodies this 
philosophy within the Green Party by giving our membership greater say 
over who will be Green candidates and in which races the party will 
run.  In this sense we are different than the Republicans and 
Democrats, whose parties are more candidate & money-driven and thus 
less democratic."

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 (Nevada allows NOTA as a merely advisory, non-binding 
choice).

Tony Miller, acting Secretary of State and winner of Tuesday's 
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 chairs 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." 

"We commend Tony Miller on joining the Green Party in support of NOTA," 
said Garcia.  "This is an example of how the Green Party, being out in 
front with innovative political ideas, helps widen the political 
dialogue and transform the status quo...  We hope that the 1994 
Secretary of State campaign will further expand this dialogue by 
focusing on needed electoral reforms like proportional representation, 
public campaign financing, and equal media access."

The Green Party of California was founded in February, 1990 and 
achieved official statewide ballot status after registering 103,000 
Californians as Green Party members by December 31, 1991 (78,992 were 
needed).  Between 1992 and 1994, the Green Party gained 61 elected and 
appointed local officeholders, including city council seats in Albany, 
Arcata, Berkeley, Davis and Whittier.  This is the first year the party 
is contesting state-wide races.