Sunday, June 10, 2012

Georgia Constitution and Green Parties Sue State Over Ballot Access


RedPhillips

Posted under Constitution Party & Third Party

Our friends in the Georgia Constitution Party and at VoterGA want like-minded folks to spread the word about their lawsuit.

Recently the Atlanta Journal Constitution ran a front page article on the suit.

Georgia has incredibly difficult barriers to ballot access for “third” parties.

Below is an excerpt from the press release:

ATLANTA, GA – The Constitution Party of Georgia and the Green Party of Georgia filed a federal lawsuit on Friday attempting to force Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, to list their Presidential candidates on the 2012 ballot. The lawsuit is similar to recent suits that were successful in Ohio and Tennessee.

The parties’ Presidential candidates have been listed in more than 40 states during some previous elections but have never appeared on the ballot in Georgia. For Georgia elections the candidate names must be written in on the ballot. Questions have arisen in the past as to whether the state has counted these write-in votes correctly and completely as required…

… Georgia has the most restrictive ballot access laws in the country for certain races according to Ballot Access News. In 2011, Rep. “Rusty” Kidd introduced H.B. 494 to eliminate petitioning and this year the Election Advisory Council (EAC) for the Secretary of State voted to reduce the requirements. However, Government Affairs Committee Chairman, Mark Hamilton, under direction of Speaker David Ralston, blocked a hearing for H.B. 494 and removed the EAC recommendations from legislation that was eventually passed.

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