COLUMBUS, Ohio— The decision this month by the Ohio secretary of state’s office to invalidate presidential votes for Jill Stein after receiving withdrawal paperwork from her running mate has set off a flurry of finger-pointing.
Stein’s campaign now claims that Anita Rios, listed as Stein’s vice-presidential running mate, never tried to leave the race and that an unauthorized withdrawal letter used Rios’ “copied-and-pasted” signature.
Ohio Green Party Co-Chair Philena Farley, who says she wrote and turned in the letter, claims she acted with Rios’ full knowledge and permission. But she said the Ohio secretary of state’s office told her that Rios’ withdrawal wouldn’t be accepted.
An Ohio secretary of state spokesman denied that assurance was given, but he said the office is now looking into whether to launch an investigation.
“It’s a mess,” Farley said in an interview.
Stein, who is the Green Party’s 2024 presidential nominee but is running as an independent in Ohio this year, isn’t expected to make a big splash in Ohio’s presidential race, which Republican Donald Trump is favored to win by a significant margin for the third straight election cycle.
But it’s unusual for state elections officials to completely invalidate votes cast for a presidential candidate like Stein, who was the choice of nearly 50,000 Ohioans during her last presidential run in 2016.
Stein, a Massachusetts physician and environmental activist, is one of six presidential candidates on the ballot this year in Ohio.
The letter
When Stein submitted paperwork in July to make Ohio’s presidential ballot, she named Rios – the Greens’ 2014 nominee for Ohio governor – as her vice-presidential pick.
As the Green Party wasn’t going to vote on a vice-presidential nomination until its national convention in mid-August, Rios was one of several stand-in running mates put forward in various states in order to meet candidate-filing deadlines. Ohio was the only state where Rios filed to run for vice president.
On Aug. 18, the Greens nominated Butch Ware, a pro-Palestinian activist and a history professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for vice president. In the days that followed, Farley said she, Rios, and other Ohio Green Party leaders tried in vain to get directions from the Stein campaign about whether to swap Ware for Rios on the Ohio ballot.
“They just didn’t communicate with us at all on what to do,” Farley said.
Farley said she and Rios finally decided to try to make the substitution. As Rios had COVID-19 at the time, Farley said, on Aug. 28 she took a letter – signed with an image of Rios’ signature lifted from her candidate petition form – to the Ohio secretary of state’s office in downtown Columbus.
Farley said when she handed the letter over to a secretary of state’s office staffer (whose name she said she couldn’t remember), the staffer told her that it was too late for Rios to withdraw, as the state’s deadline for candidates to take their name off the ballot had passed.
Farley left the letter with the secretary of state’s office, and it was forwarded to several staffers in the office.
But despite what Farley understood from the conversation, it wasn’t too late for Rios to withdraw. Ohio law generally allows non-presidential candidates to end their campaigns at any point up until Election Day.
More than a week later, on Sept. 6, LaRose’s office notified the Stein campaign via email that Rios’ name was removed from the Nov. 5 ballot, per her request, according to a copy of the email obtained via a public-records request.
The email did not mention that, under the reading of Ohio law by the secretary of state’s office, any votes cast for Stein would be deemed invalid, as she no longer had a recognized running mate.
Lusheck stated in an email that Stein’s campaign didn’t respond about that until Sept. 19, when secretary of state officials emailed a letter to Stein’s campaign spelling out that votes for Stein would be invalid.
That same day, LaRose’s office notified all 88 county boards of election that they must include notifications at polling places, as well as enclose inserts with all mail-in ballots, that any votes for Stein and Rios will not be counted.
As for Farley’s contention that the secretary of state’s office incorrectly told her that it was too late for Rios to withdraw, Lusheck replied, “These individuals seem to be changing their story by the hour, so their claims should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.”
“The law clearly lays out the requirements and timelines for candidates to withdraw from the ballot,” Lusheck continued. “This office has consistently communicated that information both verbally and in writing, but it’s ultimately up to each campaign to seek their own legal counsel on how to comply with the law.”
Stein campaign’s reaction
Jason Call, Stein’s campaign manager, gave a very different portrayal of what happened, intimating that Farley forged Rios’ signature on a withdrawal letter without the knowledge or permission of either Rios or the Stein campaign.
In an email, Call stated that the Stein campaign never intended to replace Rios with Ware on the Ohio ballot, given that the state’s deadline to replace candidates was several days before Ware was nominated for vice president.
While Call didn’t mention Farley by name, he stated that the Aug. 28 letter was turned in by someone who “was not authorized in any way” to withdraw Rios from the Ohio ballot.
“They thought they were being helpful, but they were not in a position to make decisions, and are not associated with the campaign in any way,” he stated.
Call questioned why LaRose’s office would accept a purported withdrawal letter brought in by a state Green Party official, even though Stein is running in Ohio as an independent candidate.
“If this is precedent, anyone could walk into the SoS office and just start withdrawing candidates willy-nilly,” Call stated. “The Ohio SoS office failed to exercise any measure of due diligence here.”
Call stated that he left messages with the elections department but hasn’t received a call back.
“I would rather not get legal counsel involved if they will just recognize their error,” Call concluded. “But a case will be filed if they don’t.”
In an email, Rios supported Call’s impression that Farley submitted the withdrawal letter without her knowledge.
“I did not send a letter to the SOS asking to be removed from the ballot,” Rios stated, “and have had no communication with that office other than, several months ago, asking some very basic questions about our petition drive. Which they refused to answer.”
Farley disputed that she went behind Rios’ back, saying Rios was on the phone with her while she turned the letter in at the secretary of state’s office.
The reason the Stein campaign is now claiming is that they didn’t authorize the letter, Farley said, is “because they’re trying to save their butt.”
The Plain Dealer/cleveland.com has sent follow-up questions to Rios and Call.
Jeremy Pelzer covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
