The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has this story about Americans Elect, which is currently circulating a petition to qualify itself as a party for statewide office in Georgia. The article says Americans Elect has 20 petitioners working in that state.
No statewide petition in Georgia has succeeded since 2000, when Pat Buchanan completed an independent candidate petition. Statewide minor party and independent candidate petitions need 1% of the number of registered voters. The Green Party, the Natural Law Party, and the Constitution Party, never appeared on a statewide ballot in Georgia. Georgia is one of four states in which Ralph Nader never appeared on the ballot. The others are Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Indiana.
The Journal-Constitution story says Americans Elect needs 45,707 valid signatures, but actually they need 57,956. UPDATE: the Georgia Secretary of State’s office says the requirement is 1% of the number of active registered voters, and that the number of inactive registered voters is immaterial. Therefore, the requirement is 50,334 valid signatures.
Pretty steep petition requirements. Texas is even easier than Georgia.
Minor party or statewide independent petitions have succeeded in Texas in 2010, 2006, 2004, and 2000. However, the success in 2010 apparently cost almost $500,000.
Richard,
In 2010 in Texas I suppose you are referring to the $500K spent by the Republican Party to get the Green Party on the ballot to try and draw votes away from the Democrats.
Our petition for Kinky Friedman in 2006 was easier than Georgia’s petition criteria since we’ve got about 3 times more population.
Yes, but in Texas, no one can sign who voted in the primary. And Texas has a shorter window, 75 days for new parties and 65 days for independent candidates. Georgia allows 180 days.
Ah yes, six months is a good amount of time. We did have crunch time in 2006 with only two months.
Doesn’t Texas also not allow petitioning if there is a primary run-off for a statewide office?
Also, AE needs to be aware that they are continually telling folks that they can still participate in their party’s activities (presumably primary voting) and still be able to be a voting delegate in the Spring/Summer of 2012. This will put primary voters who sign the AE petition in jeopardy.