In order to gather signatures for left-wing presidential candidate Cornel West, twelve hired operatives registered with Arizona’s secretary of state on Sunday. They identified their company as a Republican-leaning organization that had previously collaborated with GOP House candidate Blake Masters.
Unlike other states, Arizona requires petition gatherers who are paid or from outside the state to register with the government. Some of the circulators helping West get on the ballot in Arizona spelled his name incorrectly on their public registration forms, writing “Carnel west” or “Cornelle West.”
Every box marked, signifying that they are being paid and that they are out of state. All of them identified their employer as Wells Marketing LLC, or a variant with a few misspellings.
Who is paying them isn’t quite obvious. Requests for comments were not immediately answered by Wells Marketing.
“The Democratic Party & the mainstream media are fabricating stories about us having ties to GOP operatives. False!” West campaign spokesperson Edwin DeJesus stated. “We’re not hiring Republicans or Democrats. This is a clear smear because we’re championing workers, while they protect the interests of the wealthy elite.”
“They falsely claim we’re aiding Trump to discredit us, but we stand with poor and working people,” he continued.
To be on the Arizona ballot, West will need to gather tens of thousands of signatures, and it’s doubtful that his campaign is paying the circulators.
According to its most recent campaign financial report, the campaign reported that it owed more money than it had in its possession, making it almost bankrupt. Additionally, the campaign has declared its ideological commitment to using volunteers rather than hired canvassers.
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According to the secretary of state’s records, Wells Marketing gathered signatures earlier this year for a number of Republican candidates in Arizona, including Masters, state representative Justin Heap, and GOP senatorial candidate Elizabeth Jean Reye.
Additionally, it stated that it was assisting Mike Norton, a Green Party candidate for the Senate who the Arizona Green Party has disavowed as one of two front-runners for the major parties.
Prominent Republicans have endorsed West’s left-leaning candidacy with the intention of “stealing votes away from Joe Biden.” Renowned Black scholar and activist for racial justice, West has made the suffering of Gazans during Israel’s war on Hamas the main focus of his campaign.
Republicans hoping to gain ground in the West have stated that they are concentrating on battleground states such as Arizona, where a few thousand votes might determine the winner in November—former President Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
