PHOENIX, Apr. 24 -
The Arizona Green Party (AZGP) today expelled the Pinal County Greens from the state party and revoked the group's membership in the AZGP.
"The so-called Pinal County Greens were never an official organization of the Arizona Green Party like the Maricopa Greens, the Pima Greens, and other county groups," Angel Torres, AZGP state co-chair said.
Claudia Ellquist, the AZGP delegate to the Green Party of the United States said in a statement: "No such local party ever existed in Pinal County. Nor does a 'Pinal County Green Party' exist under the AZGP banner. This group is a sham, just as Richard Grayson, the group's purported co-chair, was a sham Green candidate for Congress in 2010 whom we opposed and whom we sued -- unsuccessfully, sadly -- to remove from the Green Party ballot."
Torres added that Grayson's running for office in the 2012 Green Party presidential preference election in February, in which Grayson finished in a tie for third behind Jill Stein and Kent Mesplay, was also a sham campaign, as was Grayson's write-in candidacy in the special Green Party primary election for Congress in the Eighth Congressional District last week.
"We have been more than tolerant with these fraudulent Arizona Green Party members," said Ellquist. "But the Pinal County Greens' recent endorsement of President Barack Obama for re-election forces us to formally expel the Pinal County Greens, co-chair Richard Grayson, and all its members, if there are any, from the AZGP."
Grayson said that at present he had no comment on the Pinal County Greens' expulsion from the Arizona Green Party.
