Becoming an Official Green Party member in Ohio:
According to the Ohio Green Party bylaws, if you pull a petition to run for office as a Green and get the appropriate Green Party and Independent signatures to get on the ballot, we count you as a Green. If another Green Party member wants to run for office as a Green, you CANNOT sign a petition for them if you voted in the most recent statewide primary in another party primary even if you are on the ballot running for office as a Green. If you voted in another party’s primary, you cannot run for Central Committee as a Green, but should vote in the next Green Statewide Primary (even years only in Ohio) and you could then be appointed to be a Central Committee member after the election.
If you did NOT vote in the previous primary, you are considered “independent” in Ohio and can sign petitions for members of an organized political party, but only for one party if it is a partisan petition because in signing it you are claiming to be a member of that party. The Ohio Green Party recognizes you as an official member of the Green Party if you sign a petition or run for office as a Green. If you are officially an Ohio Green Party member, you can be appointed to a Central Committee. If you are in an organized Green Party County, you need to be nominated by that County Central Committee to be added to a Central Committee. If you are not in an organized county, you apply directly to the Ohio Green Party Central Committee to become a County Committee member. You can also run for a Green Party Central Committee in the next statewide primary as well.
The Ohio Green Party is an officially organized political party with by-laws filed with the Secretary of State. We need to follow our own laws/rules but can make changes at our statewide convention, provided the proposed amendments have been correctly advertised and placed on the Convention agenda. Separately, there are state law requirements/laws that are designed to protect a party from being taken over by another party that we cannot amend at our conventions.
Follow this link to get back to the main menus of the swohgp web page Navigator.