[ComCom] Jon Keller: Did Healey Help Green Party Collect Signatures?

[Colby E. Peterson]

I'm not really sure what to make of this. This story implies that we  
didn't have the resources to get ourselves on the ballot- do we  
follow up or do we just let it go? And where did Grace make a non- 
denial denial????? WTF? Not sure where they're going with this... all  
of the sigs we turned in were tracked by our own volunteers, and not  
by outsiders. Are there discrepancies between our count and the  
official count (showing perhaps much more than we thought)?

Suggestions, please.

- Colby Peterson, Communications Director


http://cbs4boston.com/keller/local_story_241154225.html

(CBS4) BOSTON The candidate for Massachusetts governor from the Green- 
Rainbow party has met the deadline for submitting nomination papers,  
but did the Grace Ross campaign have some help getting the 10,000  
required signatures?

Where's Spencer-for-hire when we need him? Seriously, there's nothing  
illegal about gathering signatures for a candidate you think might  
pull votes away from your opponent in November, but it's also no  
wonder that candidates are reluctant to admit to the practice.

“As a party we've never really had any problem getting our  
signatures,” said Ross, gubernatorial candidate of the left-wing  
Green-Rainbow Party.

Celebrating the filing of 14,000 nominating petition signatures,  
4,000 more than required to make the November ballot.

But did Ross have some outside help?

On Tuesday, 2002 Green Party gubernatorial nominee Jill Stein told us  
she declined an offer of signature help from the republicans four  
years ago. And this time around?

Keller: I have been told that the Healey campaign helped you get your  
signatures, is that true?

Ross: Well, that's fascinating, not that we know of. I mean, all of  
our volunteers are Green-Rainbow volunteers that I know of.

But Ross acknowledges the Healey camp has been eager to see her  
involved in the race. “They were in touch with us when I was fighting  
to get into the media debate, the first one, the only one we've been  
excluded from, about backing our right to be in that debate.”

In a statement on Tuesday, a Healey campaign spokeswoman told us: "I  
can assure you we're focused on our own campaign, and not what any of  
the other campaigns are doing."

And Ross said if they did help her, thinking she might draw votes  
from the democrats, they were wasting their time. “The assumption  
that we pull votes somehow that belong to somebody else... I don't  
know anybody who owns votes yet. Maybe our system is getting corrupt;  
I don't think it's that corrupt yet.

Does all this matter? Four years ago, Jill Stein won nearly four  
percent of the vote. Democrat Shannon O’Brien lost to Mitt Romney by  
just five percent. You do the math.