Socialist Equality Party candidates submit petition for ballot access in Michigan

Today, we submitted the signatures of 20,000 registered voters in the state of Michigan to place us, Joseph Kishore and Jerry White, on the ballot as the Socialist Equality Party’s candidates for president and vice president of the United States.

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The number of signatures we submitted is far in excess of the requirement in Michigan of 12,000. We obtained signatures from voters in every congressional district and 76 of Michigan’s 83 counties.

This is a tremendous achievement. It would not have been possible without the self-sacrifice and dedication of SEP supporters from throughout the state and indeed across the country. 

The signatures are an expression of the real sentiment that exists in the working class and among young people. In the course of this campaign, we spoke with hundreds of thousands of people. There is enormous opposition to the genocide in Gaza, the escalating global war, extreme levels of social inequality and the turn of the ruling class toward dictatorship and fascism. 

Biden and Trump, the candidates of the Democratic and the Republican parties, are broadly hated. In Michigan, the historic center of auto manufacturing in the United States, there is a growing anger in the working class against capitalist exploitation and the participation of the trade union apparatus in the attack on wages, benefits and jobs.

As we turned these petitions in, the Republican National Convention is being held, a festival of fascistic reaction. In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Trump, the line from the Democrats and Biden, dripping in blood from the genocide in Gaza, is “unity”—which means the unity of the ruling class in war abroad and war on the working class at home.

The Socialist Equality Party and our campaign gives expression to the interests of the working class in the US and throughout the world.

We are developing within the working class an understanding that our interests cannot be realized except through the fight against capitalism—that is the taking of power by the working class, the expropriation of the rich, and the creation of a society free of war and exploitation, a society based on equality.

These signatures testify to the fact that there is a growing interest and support for this perspective.

The gathering of these signatures is a major achievement. But the fight is far from over. We know that the capitalist parties will do everything they can to keep us off the ballot, to prevent workers and young people from having the right to vote for the socialist candidates. 

We need your support. Make a donation today to help us continue this fight, and to develop the SEP election campaign in Michigan, throughout the US and around the world. Sign up to volunteer and get involved.