Because of COVID-19, we did the presidential nominating process a bit differently this year. There were 3 aspects:

• Presidential Preference Vote by Absentee Ballot 
• April 29th Presidential Candidates Forum Livestream
• May 16 "Virtual" State Committee Meeting and Presidential Nominating Convention

Presidential Preference Vote by Absentee Ballot 

All GPNY Members (enrolled New York State Greens and GPNY Supporting Members legally barred from registering to vote) were invited to participate in our presidential preference by absentee ballot rather than at our State Nominating Convention as would normally be the case. Ballots were required to be postmarked by May 9th in order to be counted by election administrators from the State Committee on May 14th. Greens were asked to provide, along with their ballot, information to enable verification of their Green Party enrollment or Supporting Member status. 

There were 3 candidates on the GPNY absentee ballot: Howie Hawkins, Dario Hunter, and David Rolde. GPNY’s State Committee voted in February that the candidates who met the Green Party of the United States criteria for official recognition on April 1, 2020 would be the candidates on the GPNY ballot. These 3 candidates were the only ones to have met that benchmark.

Greens cast their vote for president using ranked-choice voting (RCV), ranking the candidates in order of preference. GPNY delegates to the Green Party National Convention were awarded to the candidates proportionally based on the number of votes they received. If a candidate received less than 5% of first choice votes, they were eliminated and their ballots allocated to the next choice listed on the ballot. That process repeated until all remaining candidates had at least 5 percent of vote.  

Presidential Candidate Livestream

A presidential candidates forum was livestreamed on April 29th. You can watch the forum here. Hawkins, Hunter, and Rolde were invited and Hawkins and Hunter participated. You can find additional information on the candidates by following these links to candidate websites and questionnaires and the latest campaign news.

May 16 "Virtual" State Committee Meeting and Presidential Nominating Convention

On Saturday, May 16 we held our "virtual" State Nominating Convention! The results of the presidential preference absentee ballot vote were announced. See our press release. Candidates who won delegates spoke, along with their running mates. Delegates were then nominated and elected to represent GPNY at the Green Party Annual National Meeting and Presidential Nominating Convention which will take place online from July 9-12. Other Green candidates running down the ballot for Congress, the Legislature, and in local races also spoke. Our guest speaker was Margaret Kimberley (commentator at Common Dreams and Black Agenda Report, author of Prejudential).

Questions? Contact secretary( at )gpny.org

(Photo by Anthony Quintano via Flickr)