On May 19, U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Story, a Clinton appointee, ruled that presidential ballot access in Georgia for minor party and independent presidential candidates is not unconstitutional as a matter of law, but he left the case alive to give the plaintiffs an opportunity to present evidence that the law is too strict. Green Party of Georgia and Constitution Party of Georgia v Kemp, n.d., 1:12cv-1822.

The 34-page decision says on page 29, “Mr. Nader’s failure to access the ballot in Georgia (in all of his presidential runs, 1996 through 2008), despite Georgia’s petition requirements being a lower percentage bar than in other states where Mr. Nader was similarly denied access, could indicate that the operation of Georgia’s election code as a whole serves to unconstitutionally bar access to third party and independent candidates. But the Court cannot reach that conclusion on the record presently before it.”

The decision does acknowledge that Georgia requires each petition sheet to be notarized, and that people who circulate the petition cannot serve as notaries. It also acknowledges that no presidential petition has succeeded in Georgia since Pat Buchanan’s petition in 2000. Additional evidence that can be entered in the record will show that 5,000 signatures is enough to keep any state’s ballot uncrowded. Historically, no state that ever required as many as 5,000 signatures ever had more than eight candidates on the ballot for any particular race, except that Ohio had nine for president in 1976. Justice Harlan’s concurrence in Williams v Rhodes said that eight candidates for a particular office does not equate to a confusingly crowded ballot.

In 2016, Georgia requires 51,912 signatures for a newly-qualifying party, and 49,336 for an independent presidential candidate. The formula is 1% of the number of registered voters as of the previous election. The numbers for a new party are based on the 2014 registration data, and the presidential petition is based on the 2012 registration data.