The 11th circuit will hear Coffield v Handel on Thursday, March 4, at 9 a.m. This is the case that challenges Georgia’s ballot access law for independent and minor party candidates for U.S. House, in regular elections. The law is so severe, no one has completed the petition (5% of the number of registered voters) since 1964. Back in 1964, the signatures were not due until October, and did not need to be notarized, and district boundaries didn’t split up counties. So, petitioning was much easier back in 1964, and signatures weren’t even checked.

The plaintiff-candidate, Faye Coffield, tried to get on the 2008 ballot but failed. As a result, the voters in her district, the 4th district, saw a November ballot with only one candidate, the incumbent, Hank Johnson. The 4th district includes most of DeKalb County and part of Gwinnett County.

In 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Georgia ballot access laws, but the Court noted that the 5% petition had been used for statewide candidates in both 1966 and 1968, so the Court felt that 5% petitions can’t be that difficult. Oddly enough, the U.S. Supreme Court has never had a case challenging the petition requirements for candidates for the U.S. House. There were two co-plaintiffs running for U.S. House in the 1971 case, but no evidence was submitted in the 1971 case about the difficulties of petitioning in a district. The plaintiffs in the 1971 case, members and candidates of the Socialist Workers Party, had argued that any petition requirement was unconstitutional, so they didn’t present any evidence about petitioning and they hadn’t tried to petition. The 1971 case was called Jenness v Fortson.

On November 30, 2009, Ralph Nader re-filed his lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee, concerning its actions in the 2004 presidential election, when the party coordinated challenges to Nader’s ballot position in 18 states. Nader charges that the challenges were not made in good faith, but were designed to soak up the campaign’s resources.

Nader had filed a similar case in 2007, but the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, ruled in 2009 that the District of Columbia statute of limitations means that he should have filed within 3 years of when the events occurred. But, Maine has a six-year statute of limitations for cases like this, so the new lawsuit is filed in state court in Maine. Maine was one of the states in which the Democratic Party sponsored and financed a challenge to Nader’s petition, although that Maine challenge, like most of the party’s challenges in 2004, did not succeed. The new case is Nader v The Maine Democratic Party, the Democratic National Committee, Kerry-Edwards 2004, The Ballot Project, Dorothy Melanson, Terry McAuliffe and Toby Moffett. It is in Superior Court in Washington County, Maine, no. macsc-cv-2009-57. Here is the 55-page complaint.