The Georgia Green Party has never been on the ballot for statewide office. The law requires 51,912 valid signatures for 2016, and the petition can circulate from April 2015 to July 2016. The party is thinking about working on the petition.

One advantage of the party starting to circulate this petition is that it will obtain evidence about the difficulty of petitioning in Georgia. Shopping centers in Georgia routinely do not permit petitioning on their property. Also, because Georgia doesn’t have the initiative process, and because primary candidates don’t petition to get on the primary ballot, very few Georgia voters ever encounter anyone asking for their signature on a ballot access petition of any type. The Green Party’s experience will enable it to supply evidence in the pending ballot access lawsuit, Green Party of Georgia v Secretary of State, now in U.S. District Court. The judge who has jurisdiction over the case has not done anything with it in the last eight months, but eventually there will be a trial. The judge had originally dismissed the case without a trial, but last year the Eleventh Circuit reversed that and said the party is entitled to a trial. The Constitution Party is a co-plaintiff.