Judge rejects Green Party candidate’s bid to get on governor ballot
Green Party gubernatorial hopeful Butch Ware will have to run a write-in campaign after a federal judge Monday blocked his attempt to add his name to ballots, saying it was too late to intervene in an election where voting is already underway.
Ware was left off of the official ballot listing candidates for governor after Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office said he’d failed to properly file tax returns, as required by a 2019 state law. Ware challenged that decision in Sacramento Superior Court, arguing that the law itself was unconstitutional and that he’d been denied an opportunity to properly fix errors in the returns.
After a Sacramento judge ruled against Ware in March, he appealed the case in federal court, arguing the law was unconstitutional and requesting the court force Weber’s office to add Ware’s name to the ballot.
“California cannot condition a candidate’s access to the gubernatorial primary ballot on the submission of personal tax returns,” Ware’s attorneys wrote in their motion. “This requirement violates the First and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution.”
But in his order Monday, Judge William Shubb of the Eastern District of California said the motion came too late. Citing higher court precedent, Shubb said it was clear the election was already underway and interfering in it now would cause hardship to voters who’d already cast ballots.
“Alternatively, ordering respondent to include petitioner’s name only on ballots issued after a certain date would amount to creating two, different sets of ballots, all but ensuring a ‘chaotic and disruptive effect upon the electoral process,’” Shubb said, quoting a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court verdict.
Shubb did not address the broader arguments surrounding the constitutionality of the 2019 tax return law.
Ware’s campaign declined to comment on the decision. The University of California, Santa Barbara African and Islamic history professor is staging a write-in campaign. He previously ran as the party’s vice presidential nominee in the 2024 presidential election.
This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 11:02 AM with the headline "Judge rejects Green Party candidate’s bid to get on governor ballot."
