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Green Party: Stein Gets Needed Signatures To Make The Ballot In Connecticut

FAIRFIELD COUNTY, Conn. -- The Green Party of Connecticut has collected enough signatures to put presidential candidate Jill Stein on the ballot this November “barring any irregularities with how they are evaluated," co-chair Mike DeRosa said in a statement Friday. 

Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein recently spoke to an audience at the Stamford Innovation Center.

Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein recently spoke to an audience at the Stamford Innovation Center.

Photo Credit: Jay Polansky/file

According to the party, officials collected 14,000 and 15,000 signatures — about double the required 7,500 valid signatures of registered voters in support of a third-party candidate to appear on Connecticut's presidential ballot line in November. DeRosa said the additional signatures provide "a firm safety margin against signatures deemed unqualified by the Secretary of [the] State Denise Merrill."

The final batch of signatures was collected on 1,212 petition sheets, which were originally distributed throughout the state by over 400 party volunteers, independent activists and paid petitioners working though the nonprofit Free & Equal.

They were delivered on Wednesday to the Secretary of the State’s office by Barbara Barry, co-chair of the Connecticut Green Party and a candidate for state senator for the 1st District.

Stein presents an alternative to Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Green Party officials said in a statement. 

"In a tempestuous presidential election year where the reaction of a growing number of voters to both major party candidates ranges from disappointment and fear to outrage, both the opportunity and necessity for real choices in the race for the Oval Office, representing new thinking and practical, constructive solutions, is more crucial than ever," the state party said in a statement. 

Stein made a similar statement during a campaign stop in Stamford last month.

"[Voters] do not want, and they do not like the current establishment nominees,” Stein said in Stamford on the same evening that Trump accepted the Republican nomination at the major party's convention in Cleveland. “The public is clamoring for what we got.”

Stein's appearance on the ballot, though, is not set in stone. “We now have to wait about two weeks until we know if Stein has made it," DeRosa said in a statement. 

According to her campaign website, Stein is already on the ballot in 27 states — and Washington, D.C.

The announcement also comes on the heels of Trump's scheduled appearance Saturday at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. Earlier this spring, then-GOP presidential candidate John Kasich also held a rally at SHU.

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