On August 25, Georgia filed this 16-page appeal brief, in Green Party of Georgia v Kemp. This is the case in which the U.S. District Court had struck down the Georgia law that requires approximately 50,000 signatures on a petition for an independent presidential candidate, or the presidential nominee of an unqualified party. The U.S. District Court had said until the legislature acts, the requirement will be 7,500 signatures.

The plaintiffs are the Green Party and the Constitution Party. The brief attacks both parties and implies they are frivolous. The very first paragraph quotes Anderson v Celebrezze’s sentence, “It is both wasteful and confusing to encumber the ballot with the names of frivolous candidates”. By beginning its brief with that statement, the state implies that the Green Party and the Constitution Party, which filed the lawsuit, are frivolous.

The brief tries to persuade any reader that the U.S. Supreme Court has never struck down a restrictive ballot access law unless the plaintiff was supported by a large number of voters. But in reality, the U.S. Supreme Court has sometimes struck down restrictive ballot access laws when the plaintiffs were minor parties with little voter support. In 1968 the Court struck down the Ohio ballot access law in a case in which the Socialist Labor Party was a plaintiff. The SLP won the case, even though the opinion said the party only had 108 members in Ohio. In 1970 the Court summarily affirmed a 3-judge court decision that had put the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Labor Party on the New York ballot. The SWP received 5,766 votes for Governor that year, and the SLP received 3,963. In 1974 the Court struck down an Indiana ballot access law that had kept the Communist Party off the 1972 ballot. In the 1972 presidential election, the Communist Party only received 25,595 votes in the entire nation.

In 1976 the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a 3-judge court decision that put the U.S. Labor Party nominee on the ballot in a U.S. House race in Philadelphia, Pennsyvania, in 1974. That candidate, Bernard Salera, only received 1,141 votes. In 1979 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with lower courts in Illinois who had put the Socialist Workers Party candidate for Mayor of Chicago on the 1977 special mayoral ballot. That candidate only received 5,546 votes.

The state’s brief also tries to mislead the Eleventh Circuit by claiming on page five that the Libertarian Party of Georgia frequently places nominees on the ballot for the legislature by petition. Actually, all Libertarian Party petitions for legislative candidates have failed, since 2004. The Libertarian Party is only ballot-qualified in Georgia for statewide office, not U.S. House, legislature, or county office.