Green National Convention

The Green National Convention is the Presidential nominating convention of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS). Though the Green National Committee meets annually in a "national meeting", the convention is convened by the GNC once every four years in order to nominate an official candidate in the upcoming U.S. Presidential election, and to officially adopt the party platform and rules for the election cycle.

The convention signals the end of the primary season for Greens, and the start of campaigning for the general election of that year; as such, prominent Greens in state and local races are also spotlighted in order to give them the publicity that the convention affords. In contrast to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, however, the convention is not merely a formality which endorses the will of the electorate in the primaries, but the final determinant for the nomination. This is because ballot access laws in many states prohibit the Green Party from holding a state-sponsored primary election—only five states were able to meet the requirements in 2004—and others prevent voters from actually registering into the party, thus making it difficult to credential Greens.

As such, Green conventions often have a degree of contentiousness which was seen only in past conventions of the Democratic and Republican Parties, prior to reforms in 1968 and 1972, respectively.

The leadership of the first nationwide Green organization in the United States, The Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA), were generally opposed to an entry into electoral politics. Thus, the G/GPUSA's national meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1995 ended with a resolution not to nominate a candidate for the 1996 election. However, a group of Greens interested in a run by consumer advocate Ralph Nader met in Los Angeles in 1996 to nominate Nader for President and Winona LaDuke for Vice-President. Arguably, though it lacked official sanction, this was the first nominating convention of the Green Party in the United States, and the only one with which the G/GPUSA, if only certain members, was at all involved.

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