The candidate for Massachusetts governor from the Green-Rainbow party has met the deadline for submitting nomination papers, but did the Grace Ross campaign have some help getting the 10,000 required signatures?

Where's Spencer-for-hire when we need him? Seriously, there's nothing illegal about gathering signatures for a candidate you think might pull votes away from your opponent in November, but it's also no wonder that candidates are reluctant to admit to the practice.

“As a party we've never really had any problem getting our signatures,” said Ross, gubernatorial candidate of the left-wing Green-Rainbow Party...

...We are weighing in on the question of attendance at the State Com meeting, and sharing some sobering news on petition signatures. In short, the numbers just in show us well behind on where we ought to be. An optimistic count puts our current signatures somewhere in the 2500 ball park. Allowing the usual 2:1 margin of safety for raw:certified signatures, we need 10,000 signatures to qualify for the Treasurer and Secretary races, and 20,000 signatures to qualify for the Gov and Lt Gov races. So you can see we have a ways to go, and must pick up the pace many times over.

The concern is we have only three and a half weeks (8 weekend days) left to collect signatures. Rain could easily cut petitioning days by 25-50%. A major commitment all around is needed if we are to securely qualify all four candidates for statewide office. The repercussions for the party will be very serious if we do not qualify. If we do not pull out all the stops starting now, we fear there is a real risk we will not...

Celebrating the filing of 14,000 nominating petition signatures, 4,000 more than required to make the November ballot.

But did Ross have some outside help?

On Tuesday, 2002 Green Party gubernatorial nominee Jill Stein told us she declined an offer of signature help from the republicans four years ago. And this time around?

Keller: I have been told that the Healey campaign helped you get your signatures, is that true?

Ross: Well, that's fascinating, not that we know of. I mean, all of our volunteers are Green-Rainbow volunteers that I know of.

But Ross acknowledges the Healey camp has been eager to see her involved in the race. “They were in touch with us when I was fighting to get into the media debate, the first one, the only one we've been excluded from, about backing our right to be in that debate.”

Does all this matter? Four years ago, Jill Stein won nearly four percent of the vote. Democrat Shannon O’Brien lost to Mitt Romney by just five percent. You do the math.