CALIFORNIA'S SECRETARY OF STATE MOVES TO SILENCE THE ONLY CANDIDATE POLLING ABOVE ZERO OUTSIDE THE TWO-PARTY FIELD
March 25, 2026
Dr. Butch Ware's Campaign Fights Back Against Dual Pattern of Ballot Access Suppression and Systematic Polling Exclusion Ahead of June 2 Primary
The campaign for Dr. Rudolph "Butch" Ware, Green Party candidate for Governor of California, today formally calls attention to a dual pattern of institutional suppression that strikes at the heart of California's democratic process: an unprecedented ballot access challenge by the Secretary of State's office targeting a clerical technicality, and the deliberate exclusion of Dr. Ware from the state's most widely cited nonpartisan polling — despite his registering 2–4.66% in every survey in which he has been included.
"When the establishment tries this hard to erase someone, it tells you something," said Dr. Ware. "They couldn't beat our ideas, so they came for our paperwork. They couldn't exclude us from the race in the open, so they excluded us from the polls. California voters deserve to know this is happening — and they deserve to make that decision themselves."
THE BALLOT ACCESS FIGHT: A PHONE NUMBER, A DEADLINE, AND A DEMOCRACY AT STAKE
On March 16, 2026, at approximately 4:50 PM — with ten minutes remaining before the close of business — the California Secretary of State's office notified the Butch Ware for Governor campaign that Dr. Ware's candidacy was being challenged on the grounds that a phone number appeared in an unredacted form on a copy of his 2023 tax return filed with the Secretary of State's office.
Under California law, when unredacted personally identifiable information appears in a document that was required to be redacted before filing, the legal obligation to redact that information belongs to the Secretary of State's office, not to the candidate.
Despite this, the SOS office initiated disqualification proceedings against Dr. Ware, providing notice with a ten-minute window before the close of business. This is a timeline that campaign staff and legal observers have described as procedurally indefensible.
The campaign responded within 24 hours with two separate legal actions:
Writ of Mandate filed March 19, 2026 at Sacramento County Superior Court, represented by Attorney Tawfiq Morrar and team of election law specialists who successfully defeated Secretary of State Shirley Weber on a nearly identical challenge in the 2021 California governor's recall election.
Independent citizen suit—anticipated for filing by Thursday, by Sarah Alzanoon, a Palestinian-Latina community organizer from Sacramento who lost 56 family members in the ongoing conflict in Gaza, who filed as a private citizen because she refused to allow a clerical technicality to silence the only candidate in this race committed to fighting for her communities.
The campaign has paid a $15,000 legal retainer and remains fully resourced for the duration of the legal fight.
"They sent us a 10-minute deadline on a Friday afternoon," said Angelica Ross, Director of Communications for the Butch Ware for Governor campaign. "That was not an oversight. That was a strategy. We had a legal network ready. We filed. And we will win."
A public hearing before the Secretary of State is scheduled for Thursday, March 26, 2026 in Sacramento. A press conference will be held immediately following the hearing. The public is invited to attend. The campaign is urging supporters across California to Pack the Courts.
The voter guide mails Friday, March 27th. Inclusion in the voter guide — which reaches millions of California households before the June 2nd primary — is a central stake of the legal fight.
PPIC polled voters who said they wanted something new & revolutionary, but didn’t include Dr. ware as an option
Before examining the specific exclusion of Dr. Ware from PPIC's polling, it is worth examining what PPIC's own December 2025 survey found about what California likely voters actually want in their next governor.
PPIC's Question 16 — asked of 1,086 likely voters between November 13–19, 2025 — posed the following: "Which of the following is more important to you in candidates for statewide office, such as governor or US senator: experience and a proven record, OR new ideas and a different approach?"
The result: a statistical dead heat. 49% of likely voters chose "experience and a proven record." Roughly 51% chose "new ideas and a different approach." Within the survey's margin of error of ±3.9 percent, these figures are indistinguishable.
The same survey found that 54% of California likely voters would prefer the next governor to pursue different policies from Governor Newsom's — while only 45% wanted continuation.
The picture PPIC's own data paints is clear: California's electorate is evenly divided between voters who want the established, experienced political class and voters who want something genuinely different. And a majority actively wants to move away from the Newsom policy direction.
Every Democratic candidate in this race — Swalwell, Steyer, Porter, Becerra, Villaraigosa — represents continuity with a political establishment that has governed California for decades. Every Republican candidate represents the same national party infrastructure that voters in this state have repeatedly rejected. Not one of the candidates whom PPIC included in its polling represents "new ideas and a different approach" in any meaningful sense.
Dr. Butch Ware does. He is not a career politician. He is a UCSB professor, a Muslim scholar, a former vice-presidential nominee, and a Black man from a working-class tradition who has spent his career teaching about resistance, liberation, and what governance actually in service of the people looks like. His platform — universal healthcare through CalCare, social housing modeled on Vienna, ending forced prison labor, full climate action — does not exist anywhere else on this ballot.
PPIC's survey identified the precise voter appetite that Dr. Ware was built to capture. Then PPIC excluded him from the ballot test question that would have allowed that appetite to register.
THE POLLING SUPPRESSION: ERASED FROM THE CONVERSATION
The ballot access challenge does not exist in isolation. The Ware campaign has documented a parallel pattern of exclusion: the systematic omission of Dr. Ware from major polling that is then cited by media outlets as the authoritative picture of the governor's race.
The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), the state's most widely cited nonpartisan polling institution, conducted a statewide survey of the governor's race from February 3–11, 2026, surveying 1,049 likely voters. That poll was subsequently cited by multiple California news outlets — including the Santa Barbara Independent — as the definitive ranking of "major contenders" in the race.
Dr. Butch Ware was not included in the PPIC poll. A footnote in the Santa Barbara Independent's coverage acknowledged this in a single parenthetical: *"Green Party candidate and UCSB professor Butch Ware was not included."
The stakes of that exclusion are not trivial. In every poll where Dr. Ware has been included, he has registered:
4% in late December 2025 / early January 2026 tracking polls, placing him competitively with candidates including Eric Swalwell, Tom Steyer, Xavier Becerra, and Steve Hilton
2% in the EMC Research poll (January 29 – February 4, 2026) — a poll conducted for the campaign of Eric Swalwell, one of his direct competitors in the race
2% in the PPIC poll itself — which paradoxically included Dr. Ware in its crosstabs while excluding him from the media-facing candidate list distributed to reporters
For context: Tony Thurmond, Antonio Villaraigosa, and Matt Mahan — all of whom were included on the PPIC's publicized "major contenders" list — registered at or below Dr. Ware's polling numbers in comparable surveys.
The Ware campaign is calling on California's polling institutions and media organizations to apply consistent, transparent, and publicly stated criteria for which candidates are included in statewide surveys — and to disclose when and why candidates are excluded.
"If you poll a candidate and he registers, you include him," said Dr. Ware. "You don't get to decide someone isn't a major candidate by leaving them out of the poll and then citing the poll as proof they don't matter. That is not neutral. That is a thumb on the scale."
A PATTERN, NOT AN INCIDENT
The campaign notes that the confluence of these two forms of suppression — legal and institutional — is consistent with the historical treatment of independent and third-party candidates who demonstrate genuine electoral viability.
Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party's 2024 presidential nominee and Dr. Ware's running mate during that campaign, addressed this pattern directly when she spoke with the Ware campaign last week: "I have never run for office without the Democrats either doing something like this or trying to sue to get me off the ballot. Every single election."
Dr. Ware launched his campaign in February 2025 with the explicit goal of offering California voters a genuine alternative to the corporate duopoly, one grounded in universal healthcare through CalCare (AB 1900), a social housing program modeled on Vienna's publicly owned housing system, full trans rights protections, and an end to forced prison labor. He served as the Green Party's vice-presidential candidate in the 2024 election alongside Dr. Stein, and holds a faculty appointment at the University of California, Santa Barbara, specializing in West African history, Islamic knowledge, and the African diaspora.
He is currently polling within single digits of the lead in the California governor's race, in polls where he is included.
CALLS TO ACTION
For members of the press:
The campaign is available for interviews with Dr. Ware, Director of Communications Angelica Ross, and Press Secretary Valielza Huynh-O'Keefe. Contact press@butchware4gov.org.
For California voters:
Call the California Secretary of State's Elections Division at (916) 657-2166, Monday–Friday, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM, and urge them to reverse this challenge and keep Dr. Butch Ware on the June 2nd ballot.
For supporters:
Donate to the Keep Butch on the Ballot Legal Fund at zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/keep-butch-on-the-ballot — 100% of donations go directly to the campaign.
Be in Sacramento on Thursday, March 26 for the public hearing. A press conference will be held immediately following at Little Morocco Cafe, 716 7th St, Sacramento, CA 95814. RSVP is required.
Join Dr. Butch Ware and supporters at the public hearing for the lawsuit against the SoS in Sacramento.
Thursday, March 26, 2026
Meet us at 3pm outside courthouse
Hearing begins at 3:30pm
Press conference to follow at Little Morocco Cafe from 4-6pm
About Butch Ware for California Governor 2026
Dr. Rudolph “Butch” Ware is running for Governor of California with the Green Party. He is a longtime organizer and movement builder, and is a tenured professor of African and Islamic history at University of California, Santa Barbara. He ran as the Vice Presidential candidate alongside Jill Stein in the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. His campaign is fully grassroots and does not accept corporate or super PAC donations. His platform includes guaranteed affordable housing, single payer healthcare, free community and state colleges for California residents, fully funded and expanded public transit, and more.
Website: https://www.butchware4gov.org/
Instagram: @butchware
Twitter: @ButchWare
Facebook: ButchWare4Gov2026
