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Writing in the Green Party ticket for Gov.-Lt. Gov. is the best option this November

To the editor:

This November, only the Democratic and Republican candidates will appear on the ballot for New York state governor/lieutenant governor.

The absence of third parties is the result of “reforms” pushed through by the disgraced Andrew Cuomo. The state raised the requirement for a party to remain on the ballot from 50,000 votes for governor every four years to 130,000 votes or 2% of the total votes cast in each presidential or gubernatorial election (whichever is higher) and the signatures required for independent-candidate ballot access from 15,000 to 45,000.

With Cuomo gone, the main beneficiary of these changes is his successor, Kathy Hochul, a corporate centrist with a penchant for pay-to-play corruption — e.g., another “Buffalo Billion” to satisfy the Bills’ billionaire owner’s demand for a new stadium; hundreds of millions in state contracts to donors giving hundreds of thousands to Hochul’s campaign.

Her opponent, Lee Zeldin, is an election-denying Trump extremist who voted in Congress against certifying the 2020 presidential election, then got caught committing fraud by mixing petition-sheet photocopies with 11,000 signatures throughout his petition attempting to create another ballot line.

Voters who want someone to vote FOR other than the lesser of two evils have another option: write in Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins for governor and Gloria Mattera for lieutenant governor (hawkinsmattera.org). It’s a vote for an eco-socialist Green New Deal (100% clean energy in 10 years), universal public health care, a guaranteed income above poverty, progressive criminal-justice reforms, affordable housing/child care, tuition-free public college and election reforms.

Fred Balzac

Saranac Lake

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