The statewide offices up in Georgia this year are President, U.S. Senate, and Public Service Commission. For the third election in a row, the Public Service Commission race will have just a Republican and a Libertarian on the ballot.
In 2014 the Libertarian nominee for this office, John Monds, polled 710,408 votes, 31.67% of the vote. He carried DeKalb, Fayette, and Hancock Counties.
In 2012 the Libertarian nominee for this office, David Staples, polled 1,095,115 votes, 34.17% of the vote. He carried Clayton, DeKalb, and Hancock Counties.
Also, in 2008, there was a Public Service Commission race between just a Republican and a Libertarian. The Libertarian, Monds, polled 1,076,760 votes, 33.40%.
As more of these results accumulate, the state’s policy that the Libertarian Party does not have enough support to be on the ballot for U.S. House, state legislature, and county office, becomes more and more absurd. Libertarians who want to run for those office must each submit a petition of 5% of the registered voters, something so difficult that no minor party has done it for the Georgia legislature since 2004, and that no minor party has ever done for U.S. house in the history of the law, which is 73 years old.
The 2016 Public Service Commission race is between Republican Tim Echols and Libertarian Eric Hoskins. In the U.S. House races this year, four of the fourteen have only one candidate on the ballot.
My new poll is out at waunakeegan.weebly.com if you want to take it.
The 5% threshold strikes me as borderline unconstitutional. Compared to the threshold struck down in Williams v. Rhodes (1968), 15% of votes cast in the last Ohio gubernatorial election, Georgia’s is quite severe. Given voter turnout of 50%, the Georgia requirement actually amounts to about 10% of votes cast in the previous election (or 2/3 of Ohio’s old standard, not 1/3).
I was surprised to learn that Georgia’s 5% threshold was unanimously upheld in Jenness v. Fortson (1970), but that there was a dissent by Marshall and Brennan in Munro v. SWP (1986), which upheld Washington’s test of receiving 1% of the votes in the primary to proceed to the general election ballot.
But the dissent in Munro made some good points: particularly, that candidates demonstrably struggled to meet Washington’s test more than candidates struggled to meet Georgia’s test, even though Georgia’s was arguably more severe. On the whole, I think this dissent should be championed as a basis to test ballot access standards (even though I think the dissenters were wrong in defending the Jenness decision). If the strongest third party and independent candidates struggle to achieve ballot access (or even one of the two major parties), then the state is obviously using too high of a standard to keep “frivolous” candidates off the ballot. Having three or four candidates does not cause overcrowding (nor, probably, does having five or six).
In short, I think the dissent in Munro was right to point out that we must measure the impact of standards on candidates’ ability to achieve ballot access. We cannot simply take the state’s theoretical arguments at face value, as the Court has often done, without having to prove, empirically, that the high standards do indeed prevent overcrowding and confusion.
Anyway, I reviewed the Court’s major ballot access cases for IVN here, with some analysis:
(Part 1) http://ivn.us/2016/09/02/spot-ballot-alternative-candidates-supreme-court-long-fight-competitive-elections/
(Part 2) http://ivn.us/2016/09/07/spot-ballot-alternative-candidates-supreme-court-long-fight-inclusive-elections-part-2-2/