On September 2, the Georgia Secretary of State filed a brief in Cowen v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:17cv-4660. The purpose of the brief is to react to the U.S. District Court’s tentative decision to require petitions of 1% of the number of registered voters, plus a filing fee of approximately $5,200, for U.S. House candidates who are not nominees of a party that polled 20% of the vote in the last election.

The state’s brief says the judge has no authority to reduce the requirements for legislative candidates, or candidates for partisan county office, because the original Complaint only challenged the U.S. House requirements. The state also objects to lowering the petition to 1%, but it doesn’t suggest what the state thinks the interim relief should be.

The state submits a list of precedents from other states that upheld petition requirements of 3% or 5% of the last vote cast, but the list contains errors. It says the First Circuit upheld New Hampshire’s 3% (of the last gubernatorial vote) petition in Libertarian Party of New Hampshire v Gardner. That is not true; that decision upheld the requirement of 3,000 signatures for statewide candidates and 1,500 signatures for U.S. House candidates.

The state says that the Tenth Circuit upheld Oklahoma’s 5% petition in Rainbow Coalition of Oklahoma v Oklahoma State Election Board, but in that case, a minor party or independent candidate could run for U.S. House (or any partisan office other than president) with no petition at all. The 5% petition was only required to put the party label on the ballot. The state says that Fifth Circuit upheld Louisiana’s “5% signature requirement” in Dart v Brown, but Louisiana let any candidate on the ballot for U.S. House, or any office, with just a filing fee; the decision only related to whether the candidate could have a party label. Also Louisiana’s law did not involve a petition, but a registration test.