Georgians voting in November will have a choice of at least three presidential candidates. Others believe they have earned the right to a spot in the White House, but Georgia’s Democratic Party is trying to keep them out of the race.
Four third-party presidential candidates say they are preparing to face Democrats at the state level and wonder whether they can appear on the ballot in November.
Jacob Dallas-Main, a volunteer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said Democrats in Georgia have been particularly aggressive against socialist candidate Claudia De la Cruz.
“We know that’s because Georgia is kind of a new purple state, a new swing state,” he said. “They want to fight the battle here, but we’re saying that people in the South should have options, and if the Democrats or the Republicans want to win in this state, they should win on their own agendas and actually offer something to the people, not just try to force someone to the lesser of two evils.”
At a news conference near the state Capitol on Thursday, Dallas-Main and other volunteers said they had worked hard to collect nearly 16,000 signatures from Georgia voters before the July deadline. State law requires 7,500 valid signatures to secure a spot on the ballot.
“We collected more than twice the number of signatures we needed, knowing that a signature could be invalid for one reason or another,” said campaign worker Estevan Hernandez. “This was a serious effort by all of our volunteers, many of whom finished work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening signing petitions on weekends and weekdays for three months.”
But in July, state Democrats filed a complaint with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office accusing the De la Cruz campaign, as well as the campaigns of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, of deficiencies in their signature and application processes. Democrats are also challenging Green Party candidate Jill Stein, whose campaign took a different route to get on the ballot. Instead of collecting signatures, the Stein campaign hopes to get on the ballot by introducing a new state law that allows candidates elected in at least 20 other states to also appear on Georgia’s ballot.
“We take the nomination process very seriously and believe everyone should follow the rules. At this time, it appears that the campaigns for RFK, Jr. Cornel West, Claudia De la Cruz and the Georgia Green Party have not diligently followed Georgia state election laws. They have missed numerous legal deadlines, failed to pay filing fees, provided the wrong names on nomination petitions and some have failed to attend caucuses. None of these candidates are qualified to be on the ballot in Georgia,” said Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye, executive director of the Georgia Democratic Party.
According to recent polls, Vice President Kamala Harris has a better chance of winning in swing states like Georgia than her boss, President Joe Biden. Pollsters and politicians have previously seen the state as leaning toward Republican Donald Trump and now as undecided.
Recent polls also suggest that third parties, especially Kennedy, could take more votes away from Trump than Harris.
In a Zoom call with media representatives late last month, Kennedy campaign staff expressed confidence that they would win the Georgia case, which also involves allegations that they filled out petitions on the wrong form.
“This is one of those challenges where you’re throwing spaghetti at the wall,” said Paul Rossi, senior Ballot Access Council member. “The applications are on the correct forms. They’ve also claimed that the electors didn’t pay a filing fee. Well, there’s no filing fee for electors in Georgia, so this is one of those challenges where, because they can’t challenge the signatures, they’ve made allegations that are just not legally correct.”
Cornel West’s spokesman, Edwin De Jesus, described the state party’s actions as undemocratic.
“The fact that Democrats planned a challenge to the electoral process before our electors had even submitted their papers is a clear indication of an attempt to suppress the contest rather than find a candidate who truly represents the concerns of working people. This undermines the democratic ideals they claim to uphold,” he said.
De Jesus said the campaign is working with legal experts ahead of a Georgia Office of State Administrative Hearings hearing scheduled for Aug. 22. The Stein campaign confirmed a hearing was scheduled for the same day, and De la Cruz’s volunteers said her hearing is set for Aug. 19.
Dallas-Main said voters are increasingly demanding choices beyond the two major parties, and he predicted that will continue even if De la Cruz and Vice President
Candidate Karina Garcia does not make it onto the ballot in Georgia.
“Even if we are defeated — and to be clear, we do not expect to be defeated. We have a strong case — but even if we are defeated, we will continue to organize,” he said. “We will continue to talk about the need for organizing outside of the Democratic and Republican parties, and we will continue to spread that message, organize, take to the streets and do the work wherever it needs to be done.”
