Ohio votes cast for Green Party candidate won't count due to VP swap

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Votes cast in Ohio for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein will not count because the party nominated her running mate after a state administrative deadline, according to state election officials.

Stein, who filed to run as an independent presidential candidate in Ohio because the Green Party lost state recognition several years ago, will still appear on state ballots, said Dan Lusheck, a spokesman for the Ohio Secretary of State's office, told Cleveland.com. The state started sending out ballots last week to overseas and military voters.

When Stein filed to run for president in Ohio, she listed Anita Rios — the Green Party’s 2014 nominee for Ohio governor — as her running mate. However, Rios’ name was only submitted as a placeholder until the Green Party nominated Butch Ware as Stein's running mate at their national convention Aug. 17.

When Rios notified the Ohio secretary of state’s office in late August that she was pulling her name from the ballot in favor of Ware, the office accepted her withdrawal but refused to add Ware’s name in her place. Philena Farley, co-chair of the Ohio Green Party, told the newspaper that the office said the change could not be made because the state deadline to replace an independent vice-presidential candidate on the 2024 ballot was Aug. 12.

Lusheck and Farley said the office and Stein’s campaign are in discussions on the matter, though it’s not clear if there’s still a chance some sort of deal could be reached allowing votes for Stein to count in Ohio. As the Green Party’s presidential nominee in 2016, Stein got 46,271 votes in Ohio, or 0.84% of the statewide vote.