Former GOP U.S. Senate candidate Daniel McCarthy at a protest outside the Executive Tower in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020. The protesters believe Donald Trump won re-election in 2020 and objected to the state casting its electoral votes for Joe Biden. /Photo by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy / Arizona Mirror
By Jeremy Duda | Arizona Mirror
The fledgling Patriot Party skipped an appointment with the Secretary of State’s Office to submit signatures so it can be recognized as an official party, meaning its candidates won’t be on the ballot in the 2022 election cycle, the first since its formation.
According to Murphy Hebert, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Patriot Party Chairman Steve Daniels was scheduled to meet with the office on Friday afternoon, but cancelled the meeting minutes before it was supposed to begin.
In order to qualify as an official party for purposes of ballot access, a party must collect a minimum number of signatures equal to one-and-one-third percent of the total votes cast for governor in the state’s last gubernatorial election. Based on the vote count from the last governor’s race in 2018, that number is currently set at 31,686.
As part of its efforts to achieve ballot access, Patriot Party figure Daniel McCarthy recorded robcalls that began going out in early November, according to the Yellow Sheet Report, a high-priced subscription-only political insider publication. Jason Tsinnijinnie, a paid petitioner for the campaign, said he was paid $8 per signature. Several people on social media said some petitioners were paid as much as $12 per signature.
