On September 19, Georgia filed its 17-page brief in Green Party of Georgia v State of Georgia, 13-11816. The issue is whether Georgia’s presidential ballot access is unconstitutionally difficult. No presidential petition has succeeded in Georgia since 2000. The law in 2012 required 50,334 valid signatures and all sheets had to be notarized.

The Green Party and the Constitution Party are basing their lawsuit on the Eleventh Circuit precedent Bergland v Harris, a 1985 case that said prior precedents upholding Georgia’s ballot access laws don’t necessarily apply to presidential restrictions. Georgia is in the Eleventh Circuit. The Bergland decision says that the existing law at the time, which required 61,670 signatures, might be unconstitutionally difficult, and sent the case back to the lower court for more fact-finding. No further proceedings were needed in that case, however, because in 1986 the Georgia legislature lowered the petition requirement that applied to the presidential election, and all statewide office, to 25,579 signatures. Unfortunately, since then, the number of signatures has doubled, due to population growth, so that it is almost as high as it was in 1984.

Georgia’s new brief is so reluctant to discuss the Bergland precedent, the brief doesn’t even mention that case until page 15, and only contains one sentence about it. It says the Bergland case “doesn’t support the contention that Jenness must be eschewed in favor of a new analysis that addresses the purportedly ‘unique considerations’ underlying presidential elections.” That sentence is false.

The Georgia brief also asks the Court not to hold oral argument.

On September 20, several organizations filed a federal lawsuit against the new Ohio law that makes it illegal for out-of-state circulators to work in Ohio. The case is Citizens in Charge v Husted, southern district, 13cv-935.

In 2008, the Sixth Circuit had struck down Ohio’s ban on out-of-state circulators, in a case filed by Ralph Nader. Ohio election officials then started permitting out-of-state circulators for all types of petition. But this year, the legislature passed SB 47, which, among other things, bans out-of-state circulators for all kinds of petition except independent presidential petitions.

Before 2008, the Ohio ban only applied to ballot measure petitions, recall petitions, and candidate petitions. There was never a ban on out-of-state circulators for petitions for newly-qualifying parties until 2013.

The Ohio legislature’s action in 2013 is reminscent of the behavior of the Arizona legislature in 2009. In 2008, in another case won by Ralph Nader, the Arizona ban on out-of-state circulators was struck down. So the Arizona legislature passed a bill repealing the ban but only for independent presidential petitions. The following year, the Arizona legislature thought better of that idea, and passed a bill repealing the ban for all types of petition.

When states try to defend bans on out-of-state circulators, they usually argue that out-of-state circulators might commit forgery and if they do the state will have trouble prosecuting them. But when a legislature passes a law saying that some kinds of petition can be circulated by out-of-staters, but other types of petition can’t be, the normal defense of such laws is very difficult to make. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news about the lawsuit.

The Daily Targum, one of the largest college daily newspapers in the nation, with a circulation of 18,000, has this op-ed by Steve Welzer, Green Party nominee for Governor, advocating for his candidacy.