,

While we were out organizing the most inspiring grassroots campaign this state has seen in a generation, the machine was busy trying to find a backdoor to remove us from the ballot entirely.

Three days ago, the California Secretary of State's office tried to take this campaign off the June 2nd ballot with a ten-minute email deadline.

They sent a compliance notice at 4:50 in the afternoon with a 5:00pm deadline while Butch was teaching. 

He saw it at 6:00pm. 

They said that it was too late, closed the file, and walked away from the desk.

What they did not volunteer is that our complete corrections package had been delivered, signed for, and timestamped at 9:17 that same morning. 

Hard copies hand-delivered that afternoon were accepted at the counter and never counted.

Ten minutes. 

That is the window the California Secretary of State's office decided was sufficient due process for removing a gubernatorial candidate from the ballot of the most powerful state in the country.

Anyone who has spent time in this struggle will recognize what happened here, because state power has been running this play against third-party candidates for years and has gotten very good at it. 

In 2012, California's Proposition 14 rewrote the primary rules to wall third-party candidates out of the general election with the top-two “jungle” primary system. 

In 2022, the North Carolina State Board of Elections, operating with a three-to-two Democratic majority, threw out the Green Party's ballot petitions despite a surplus of more than 2,000 valid signatures over the required threshold. 

The Elias Law Group, which the Democratic Party deploys specifically to neutralize third-party competition at the ballot level, coordinated the effort. 

In 2024, Democratic Party attorneys filed suits in multiple states and knocked Green candidates off ballots before a single primary vote was cast.

And now, in 2026, they sent a ten-minute email and bet that nobody would notice.

The through line across all of it is the same. 

A people-powered campaign that refuses corporate money and is building a real working-class coalition in the 4th-largest economy on earth represents a problem for a political system that runs on the managed illusion of choice. 

A people-powered campaign building a genuine working class coalition in the fourth largest economy on earth is a direct threat to a political system that depends on voters believing they have no real alternative. 

Every ballot challenge, every press exclusion, every bureaucratic trap is designed to protect that belief, because the moment it cracks, the whole managed performance starts coming apart.

We have the documented timeline, we have the receipts, and we are taking this to court and to the public at the same time because the facts of what happened on March 16th are airtight, and the people of California have a right to know what was done to their ballot in broad daylight.

We have retained a lawyer who has won this same type of case against Secretary of State, Shirley Weber before. Even though the Democrats behind this thought they could surprise us, we are prepared.

Democracy will not be redacted.

Chip in to the legal fund today and help us fight this the way working people have always fought it, with solidarity, with resources, and with the absolute refusal to be erased.

On Purpose, 

Angelica Ross (she/her)
Director of Communications, Butch Ware for Governor Campaign
Email:  [email protected]  | Text: (888) 583-9273
"It's collective liberation or it's no liberation at all. The corporate duopoly has staged a phony culture war in order to keep us divided against one another, because they know that if united, we get free, and divided, we don't." - Dr. Butch Ware, Candidate for Governor of California

DON’T FORGET!

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