Green Party qualifies for ballot in Maryland

Even though the Maryland Green Party first won official recognition in the state in 2000, party chair Brian Bittner was happy to call it the “new” party in the state this week. That’s because state election officials certified that the party had collected more than the 10,000 petition signatures needed to be officially recognized by the state as a political party, a designation that allows it to place candidates on the ballot without having to go through a petition process for those.