On May 3, the Georgia Supreme Court issued a ten-page opinion in Bell v Raffensperger, S21A0306. An independent candidate in 2020 needed 1,255 signatures to get on the ballot. He submitted 2,200 but was told in early September that he only had 827 valid signatures. He sued in state court, which denied relief. Then he appealed to the State Supreme Court, which merely says that the case is moot.

The experience of Andrew Bell, the plaintiff-candidate, shows how difficult it is to petition in Georgia for district office.

In 1980, when the same thing happened to John B. Anderson, the independent presidential candidate, a U.S. District Court in Georgia put him on the ballot on the basis that due process demands that when a candidate is told he or she doesn’t have enough signatures, the candidate must be given a chance to show that he really did have enough signatures. Unfortunately, that case, Anderson v Poythress, seems to have been long forgotten. It is not reported.