Georgia’s ballot access laws, for candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives who are not Democrats or Republicans, are so stringent, no one has used them in a regularly-scheduled election since 1964. The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to consider whether that law violates the U.S. Constitution. The case is Coffield v Kemp, and the Court will consider whether to hear it at its January 14, 2011 conference.

Georgia has not filed an opposition brief, and the Court has not asked Georgia to file such a brief. That is a clue that the U.S. Supreme Court probably won’t hear the case. If the Court overlooks this case, that will represent a black mark for the United States. When George Wallace sued Ohio, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that no minor party or independent candidate had qualified in Ohio for the previous 20 years, and struck down the Ohio ballot access laws. But the historical record for U.S. House elections in Georgia is far worse, because it has been 46 years since anyone has been able to qualify in Georgia. By contrast, even when Ohio’s ballot access laws were at their worst, between 1951 and 1968, three independent candidates for the U.S. House qualified in Ohio.

Recently, a member of the international organization that examines election policies in procedures in many countries of the world commented that the Georgia ballot access record is “shocking.” He promised to alert members of the organization about the Georgia record.