Three independent and third-party presidential candidates suffered setbacks in their attempts to appear on the Georgia ballot in November.
A state administrative law judge ruled Monday afternoon that the candidates or their electors were ineligible under Georgia law. However, those rulings are not final.
Chief Judge Michael Malihi also found that former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had failed to provide his actual home address on his nomination petitions, consistent with a recent ruling by a New York court. Kennedy announced Friday that he left the race and supports Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, but Kennedy has not officially withdrawn from Georgia.
Malihi expressed two mixed opinions about independent candidate Cornel West, holding that under state law he was eligible to run as an independent, but that his electors should have filed their papers in their own names and not in the candidate’s name.
The judge also concluded that the electors for Kennedy and the socialist candidate Claudia De la Cruz had made the same error in their filings.
And Malihi concluded that the Green Party had failed to prove that its candidate, Jill Stein, would appear on the ballot in 20 other states, the minimum hurdle required under a new process created this year by Georgia state lawmakers.
However, the final decision rests with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. His spokesman Mike Hassinger said on Monday that the judge’s decisions would be reviewed.
“You can expect a decision from the SOS office as soon as possible,” said Hassinger.
State Democrats formally objected among those third-party candidates running in Georgia, where President Joe Biden narrowly won by less than 12,000 votes in 2020.
Representatives of Stein and De la Cruz of the Georgia Socialism and Liberation Party vowed to continue working to gain voting rights in Georgia. A message sent to West’s campaign Monday evening did not receive an immediate response.
“The law is definitely on our side in this case,” said Estevan Hernandez, co-chair of De la Cruz’s Georgia campaign. “It’s our legal right as a Democrat to be able to vote, and we just want people to know that the fight continues and we need people’s support to be successful.”
Hugh Esco of Stein’s Georgia campaign expressed hope that Raffensperger would decide to give the campaign more time to show that their candidate would appear on the required number of ballots.
So far, the campaign has only been able to submit paperwork for six states, although Georgia requires 20. Esco said 18 other states where Stein is expected to be on the ballot have future deadlines to get on the ballot.
Esco argues that if the campaign can show that Stein is official in 20 states before ballots are printed and mailed to Georgians serving overseas next month, Stein deserves to be on the ballot in Georgia. Georgia ballots for the Nov. 5 election must be ready by Sept. 17.
“We offer the Secretariat the opportunity to continue to add to this as soon as the materials are available to us,” said Esco. “We cannot produce anything that does not exist.”
Esco said the campaign is prepared to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s early deadline, which he called arbitrary and capricious, and that the matter is outside the jurisdiction of the Office of State Administrative Hearings.
“We are very confident that our list of candidates will be on the ballot in this election cycle,” Esco said.
Without these candidates, Georgia voters will have to choose between Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump or libertarian Chase Oliver in the fall.
