Greens in Arizona are scrambling to keep their status as a recognized political party in 2020 after state lawmakers moved up the deadline for them to submit tens of thousands of signatures.

The Greens and any other party aiming for recognized status must now file at least 31,686 signatures by Nov. 28, instead of the previous deadline that was in February — 70 days later.

The new deadline is one of the earliest of its kind in the country, according to Richard Winger, editor of the San Francisco-based newsletter Ballot Access News.

Losing 70 days to gather signatures has been a hardship, said Liana West, secretary of the Arizona Green Party.

"It makes us feel like we are being targeted," West said.

And because the number of required signatures is tied to election turnout, the relatively high level of voters in 2018 means the Greens and any new political party have to collect more signatures than they typically have had to.

The Secretary of State's Office has until Dec. 1 to announce which political parties continue to qualify for recognized status.

But the Green Party has struggled to keep that title under Arizona's ballot access laws.

Low numbers a challenge for Greens

To keep its status as a recognized political party, .6% of all voters in the state would need to be registered as Green or its candidate for governor would need to have won at least 5% of the vote in last year's election.

While the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian parties are all on track for official recognition, the Green Party has fallen short on both counts.

Only 6,420 Arizona voters were registered as Greens as of July, or .17%, according to the Secretary of State's Office. And the party's candidate for governor, Angel Torres, got about 2% of the vote last year.

Still, Greens have been successful year after year in petitioning for party status.

So, the party began collecting signatures in January, West said.

If they don't have a recognized political party, Green candidates would face a higher bar to get on the ballot in individual races.

"If we don't have ballot access, it would be nearly impossible for individuals to run as Green Party members," West said.

But many Democrats have been wary of the Green Party's place on the ballot, viewing it as winning votes that would have otherwise gone to Democratic candidates.

In 2018, for example, the state Republican Party sent mailers to some Democrats tying the Green candidate for U.S. Senate to Sen. Bernie Sanders. Some Democrats argued Republicans were trying to trick Democrats on the party's left wing to vote for the Green candidate instead of the more moderate Kyrsten Sinema.

Republicans have been accused of attempting to squeeze out third parties, too, like the Libertarian Party, such as with a 2015 law to require more petition signatures for a spot on the ballot.

Change part of larger election bill

The latest change was part of a bigger piece of legislation sponsored by Sen. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, that also moves up the date of the state's primary election from the last Tuesday in August to the first Tuesday in August.

SB 1154 passed the Senate by a vote of 24-2 and the House 39-21.

The change in deadline for new political parties went largely unnoticed amid a slew of other provisions in the bill.

Such deadlines have been contentious in the past.

In 2015, the Green Party challenged the February deadline in court, arguing it was unconstitutional and provided too little time for it to gather the signatures necessary for official status.

A federal district court dismissed the case and an appeals court upheld that decision, finding that then-Secretary of State Michele Reagan demonstrated the deadline served a purpose when considering the other dates and deadlines leading up to the election.

Contact Andrew Oxford at andrew.oxford@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter at @andrewboxford.