On May 3, Pacific Greens from across the state will gather at Portland's First Unitarian Church to protest lack of inclusion of Pacific Green Secretary of State Candidate Seth Woolley at a forum designed to address election reform issues that prevent increased participation of third parties in the electoral process. "At first, the Pacific Green Party chose to endorse the [...] forum," said Woolley in a published statement regarding his lack of inclusion in the forum, "Then we heard minor party candidates weren't going to be included on stage with the other candidates seeking their party's nomination. After trying to address the issue with the organizers, the Pacific Green Party's State Coordinating Committee was left with no other choice but to unanimously rescind its endorsement of the event." After the Party revoked its endrsement, Woolley was forced to do a personal endorsement just to have an opportunity to table at the event. The conflict left Woolley perlexed, "Honestly, I think the organizers are very well-intended people and I'm 100% behind the issues being presented getting their fair hearing with the all SOS candidates, but they let the issue of my lack of inclusion fester unresolved for long enough that once they realized it was an injustice they didn't feel they had time to go back to the candidates and tell them minor party candidates could be included." "The party recognized, correctly, that lack of time was just a cop-out." He added, "The so-called 'spoiler' issue has, as we see, worked to prevent participation even within groups knowledgeable about the problem of leaving out diverse voices. If anybody's a spoiler, it's major-party candidates like Bill Bradbury, our current Democratic Secretary of State, who work to pass legislation against the participation of third parties." The May 3 Forum on Election Integrity is a cooperative forum of six different election integrity advocate groups promoting the issues of electoral accountability, reliability, and accessibility. Seth Woolley is the Secretary of the Pacific Green Party of Oregon and is seeking the Pacific Green Party nomination for Secretary of State of Oregon. Woolley's published statement follows: In the U.S. today, the spoiler fear is so entrenched into the American Psyche thanks to the two-party duopoly's propaganda campaign similar to other totalitarian governments. In Soviet America, you're given up to two choices for election, two pre-selected candidates with major funding and the Republicratic apparatchiki behind them. Not voting for one of those two candidates (if there's even a contest) is tantamount to treason in the eyes of either party. It's simply "unamerican". No, it's totalitiarian. We must, as a people get over the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt campaign of the major parties, to vote our hopes and not our fears. Yes, we can fix the problem. We can eliminate the two-party stranglehold where debate has a focus on one issue that both parties can go along with. How? Eliminate the spoiler effect and implement Instant Runoff Voting (a form of Preference Voting), which has been Constitutionally enabled in the Oregon Constitution in Article II Section 16 for one hundred years. Passed by Oregon voters in 1908 through the initiative process, now is the time we can choose to overcome the problem of voting for the lesser of two evils. We can work to pass Instant Runoff Voting in the legislature, work to implement it with a ballot measure initiative, or just demand that our Secretary of State overcome the bipartisan agreement that the idea that the voters' preferences are not how to count public support for our representatives and directly implement, or even just allow at a local level, Instant Runoff Voting, where voters can specify their preferences so that candidates MUST get a majority of the people's preference. Ironically, there was going to be a forum where the Secretary of State candidates could discuss the issues of opening up the process. But it turned out not to be the case -- only the duopoly's candidates could discuss the issues. Why? "Lack of time to get buy in from the other candidates." So, I, as a third party candidate, am left out of the debate, as usual. It didn't look all so bad. At first, the Pacific Green Party chose to endorse the election integrity forum. Then we heard minor party candidates weren't going to be included on stage with the other candidates seeking their party's nomination. After trying to address the issue with the organizers, the Pacific Green Party's State Coordinating Committee was left with no other choice but to unanimously rescind its endorsement of the event. Honestly, I think the organizers are very well-intended people and I'm 100% behind the issues being presented getting their fair hearing with the all SOS candidates, but they let the issue of my lack of inclusion fester unresolved for long enough that once they realized it was an injustice they didn't feel they had time to go back to the candidates and tell them minor party candidates could be included. The party recognized, correctly, that lack of time was just a cop-out. The so-called 'spoiler' issue has, as we see, worked to prevent participation even within groups knowledgeable about the problem of leaving out diverse voices. If anybody's a spoiler, it's major-party candidates like Bill Bradbury, our current Democratic Secretary of State, who work to pass legislation against the participation of third parties. Read more about the issues in my platform document, published here on this website, and then, send a message that enough is enough: vote for me for Secretary of State as a protest vote that you aren't being heard. Even more importantly, It's not really an issue of "spoiling" the election in this case -- the Democrats and Republicans both have a history of abusing this office equally. There's no "lesser evil" candidate to vote for. Vote Seth for SOS -- help end the two-party system in Oregon.