Montana asks US Supreme Court to block Green Party exclusion from state ballot

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Montana's Republican secretary of state, Cory Stapleton, is asking the Supreme Court to temporarily block a lower court's decision to remove Green Party candidates from the state ballot this fall.

State courts excised Green candidates after voters who signed a petition seeking their inclusion reversed course upon learning that the GOP had backed inclusion of the party, whose voters tend to skew liberal.

Green Party candidates have been blamed before for siphoning support from Democrats, most recently in 2016 when Hillary Clinton lost the presidential race to Donald Trump despite winning the popular vote by a margin of nearly 3 million.

What's at stake this year is a tight U.S. Senate race between Republican incumbent Sen. Steve Daines and Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock that ultimately could affect control of the upper chamber of Congress.

DEMS GET GREEN PARTY KICKED OFF BALLOT AFTER PRESSURING PETITION-SIGNERS

Montana Republicans spent $100,000 on hiring a private company to gather signatures to place the Green Party on the state ballot, and a state official subsequently determined that the GOP violated campaign finance law by not properly disclosing that it was behind the drive.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock walks to a meeting during the National Governors Association 2019 winter meeting in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

When Democrats garnered enough signatures from petitioners disavowing their earlier support to disqualify the party, Stapleton initially said they had missed a deadline to have the party removed; state courts overturned his decision.

According to The Montana Free Press, the state Green Party itself denied involvement with the ballot campaign but said its candidates should remain on the form.

“The Green Party denounces any effort to harass, intimidate or shame private citizens who signed a ballot access petition for any party or candidate,” National Green Party communications manager Michael O'Neil said in a recent statement to Fox News. “Our candidates have faced that kind of political bigotry for decades but employing it against regular citizens on this scale marks a new, shameful low.”

Stapleton, meanwhile, criticized the state's courts..

They have, he said in his request for an emergency stay, "created chaos out of Montana's otherwise orderly election process, without ever adequately considering the First Amendment rights of Green Party candidates, voters, and ballot access supporters. In fact, no Green Party candidate, supporter, or funder was permitted to intervene in the matter."

Stapleton added that the Montana courts had, instead, voided the thousands of votes cast in favor of the Green Party during the state's primary election and "disenfranchised nearly 13,000 qualified electors" who had signed petitions to place the Green Party on the ballot.

Without a hold, he argued, the "mere passage of time" would decide the case since his office must soon start printing general election ballots.

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The Treasure State's Senate race will be closely watched across the country as Democrats fight to reclaim the Senate. The party needs to add four seats to wrest control from Republicans if Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden doesn't win in November.

Third-party proxy wars are not new in Montana. In 2012, supporters of Democrat Jon Tester spent $500,000 supporting the Libertarian Party candidate in hopes that he'd draw votes away from the Republican contender. It may have worked, as Tester won by 18,000 votes, while the Libertarian candidate received 31,000.

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Fox News' Maxim Lott contributed to this report.