Attorney Bill Risner has filed a lawsuit to knock Green Party candidate Charles Manolakis off the ballot in the Congressional District 8 special election on June 12 to complete the term of Gabrielle Giffords, who stepped down from Congress in January.

Risner filed the court case on behalf of Luke Knipe, a Democratic Party activist who noticed that Manolakis is a registered Democrat, not a member of the Green Party.

If Manolakis is kicked off the ballot, then there would be no third-party candidate on the ballot when Democrat Ron Barber, a longtime aide to Giffords, faces the winner of the April 17 Republican Party primary between state Sen. Frank Antenori, 2010 GOP congressional nominee Jesse Kelly, broadcaster and businessman Dave Sitton and former Air Force fighter pilot Martha McSally.

A hearing has been set for March 12, according to a court document.

This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2012.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

4 replies on “Green Party Candidate Challenged in Special Race To Finish Giffords’ Term”

  1. What the??? Are the Democrats that greedy they’ll seed the other party with their own??

  3. “If Manolakis is kicked off the ballot, then there would be no third-party candidate on the ballot”

    Jim, this may be premature. . . Project White House folks may have something up our sleeves.

  4. Also, check the Arizona Daily Independent:
    http://www.arizonadailyindependent.com/201…

    Excerpt:

    Charles Manolakis registered as a Green Party candidate a week ago online. Tucson attorney Bill Risner, on behalf of Knipe, filed the lawsuit Friday to have Manolakis, who they claimed was a registered Democrat, removed from the ballot. The lawsuit included a request for a temporary restraining order to prevent Manolakis’s name from being printed on the ballot.

    Now, Risner is saying they may have sued too soon. Others say they didn’t sue too soon; they never should have sued at all. They didn’t anticipate the unpopularity of the move.

    According to a report in the Yellow Sheet, “Attorney Bill Risner said he is working with the AG’s office to have the TRO lifted, in light of the fact that Charles Manolakis is the only Green Party candidate and that his candidacy would have no effect on the other primaries, but is a big problem for the county printing schedules. “I kind of apologized for even doing it in the first place. I was so hurried that I didn’t have a clear understanding of the situation,” he said.

    There is no indication that the Green Party filed a suit to prevent Manolakis from appearing on their primary ballot. According to sources, if he was not qualified to run as the Green party nominee, it would have been discovered before the special election ballots were printed.

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