Independent presidential candidate Cornel West fails to make Arizona ballot, wants inquiry
Independent presidential candidate Cornel West failed to qualify for Arizona’s Nov. 5 ballot and will run as a write-in candidate instead, his campaign said.
The West campaign initially blamed its decision not to file on legal challenges from Democrats, but later blamed the snag on "significant irregularities" and asked Arizona officials to investigate the matter.
Meanwhile, a pair of West’s presidential electors in Arizona called his candidacy into doubt this week.
West’s campaign was missing key paperwork when an aide brought a dozen boxes of signature petitions to the Secretary of State’s office to get on the ballot on Friday. A day later, West’s campaign failed to produce the necessary documents and missed a Saturday deadline to file for the ballot.
That same day, a West elector filed his own paperwork to remove his name from the independent candidate's elector slate. Jerry Judie, a West elector who lives in Phoenix, told The Arizona Republic that he removed himself from West’s slate of electors on the same day as the ballot filing deadline.
“I said ‘I’ve got to get my name off of there,’” Judie said. “I just didn’t want to be part of it.”
Judie has been a fan of West for years but did not want to pull votes away from Vice President Kamala Harris, he said, and the change at the top of the Democratic ticket from President Joe Biden to Harris changed the equation for him. Judie pointed to Biden’s razor-thin margin of victory in Arizona in 2020, which was fewer than 11,000 votes, and said he worried West could tip the outcome of the race in former President Donald Trump’s favor.
“An angel knocked on the door and explained to me exactly what was what,” Judie said. He already knew he wanted to stop being an elector but “just didn’t know how to get my name off.”
The Associated Press reported this week that Republican lawyers are working to assist West with ballot access. West's campaign said it "categorically disputes any claims that it is working to sway the election in favor of any other candidate."
A day earlier, the Associated Press reported that one woman listed as a West elector in Arizona had never signed on to the effort and had accused the campaign of forging her signature. Denisha Mitchell said that she didn’t even know what an elector was and that paperwork showing she supported his campaign “was all forged.”
West campaign spokesperson Edwin DeJesus initially blamed the campaign’s decision not to file for the ballot on "Democrats' preemptive legal challenges against us." He did not address the missing paperwork and declined to comment on the alleged forged elector situation, saying that “our decision was based on multiple strategic considerations, and I cannot comment on individual specifics regarding the matter.
“We decided not to submit signatures for ballot access in Arizona due to the Democrats' preemptive legal challenges against us. As a grassroots, volunteer-led movement, we simply don't have the financial resources to contest these challenges in court across multiple states,” DeJesus said in a written statement. “This coordinated effort by the Democrats to file simultaneous lawsuits in key battleground states is designed to overwhelm us and restrict voter choice.”
“Given these circumstances, we believe that a write-in option in Arizona represents the most viable pathway for voters to cast their ballots for Dr. West in November,” he continued.
Days later, though, DeJesus said that the campaign "was compelled to withdraw its filings in Arizona in cooperation with election officials" because of "significant irregularities outside of the campaign's control." He did not say what those irregularities were.
"The campaign is in communication with Arizona authorities and has requested a thorough investigation into these matters. At this stage, it would be premature to comment further, as we are still gathering information. We can hope to have additional information available soon," DeJesus said in a written statement, although he did not say what the campaign would like authorities to investigate.
The move to a write-in campaign was a shift for the West campaign, which days earlier had said it gathered thousands of signatures to get on the ballot.
A representative for the West campaign brought 12 cardboard boxes to the Secretary of State’s office on Friday and said that they held approximately 100,000 signatures. Independent candidates need 42,303 signatures to qualify for the Arizona statewide ballot this fall. The West campaign aide declined an interview on Friday.
State Elections Director Lisa Marra ushered the boxes into a second-floor conference room and began to review the paperwork with the West campaign. During the review, which was streamed live on YouTube, Marra discovered that the campaign was missing a presidential nomination form, a vice presidential nomination form and an acceptance letter. The West campaign left the boxes in a storage room at the Secretary of State's Office on Friday, Marra said.
The West campaign “did not submit the necessary paperwork to make the ballot this year,” said JP Martin, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s office. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes' office declined to comment about any potential investigations.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., another independent presidential candidate, successfully filed some 110,000 signatures for the Arizona ballot on Friday. Elections officials began reviewing his signature petitions that day and plan to share whether Kennedy qualified for the ballot later this week.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Independent candidate Cornel West fails to file for Arizona ballot