The Georgia Senate Ethics Committee will hear HB 899 on Tuesday, March 13, at 2 p.m. in Room 310 of the CL Office Building. This is the bill that has all the Secretary of State’s election law improvement ideas except for the ballot access improvements. Georgia activists plan to attend the hearing and ask the Committee members to restore the ballot access improvements that were deleted in the House.

The improvements were modest; they consisted of reducing the number of signatures by approximately 25% for minor party and independent candidates. For example, the U.S. House petition would go from approximately 18,000 signatures in the typical district, to approximately 14,000. Nevertheless, Georgia has maintained the 5% petition standard unchanged (for district office) ever since 1943, and any reduction at all would be historic.