Independent presidential candidate Rocky De La Fuente is challenging Georgia procedures for checking petition signatures. He submitted 14,500 signatures earlier this year to meet a requirement of 7,500, and the state said only 20% of his signatures are valid. De La Fuente sued in state court over the petition-checking procedures. The Secretary of State has no guidelines for the counties on how to determine if a signature is valid. Each county checks the signatures from its own county without any guidelines. Some counties disqualify the signatures of inactive voters and others do not. Some counties attempt to identify a signature with poor handwriting using the signer’s birthday and/or address, and others don’t.

UPDATE: Here is Rocky’s brief in the Georgia Supreme Court. And here is the state’s brief.

A lower state court upheld current practice. The Georgia Supreme Court will hear De La Fuente’s appeal. In the State Supreme Court, the case is De La Fuente v Kemp, S17A-0424. Briefs are being filed this week. It is too late for De La Fuente to get on the Georgia ballot, but the case is important for future petitioning in Georgia.