Georgia Democrats file challenges to keep Kennedy and others off presidential ballot

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Democrats are challenging efforts to place Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and three other candidates on the state’s presidential ballots, part of a nationwide effort to block candidates who could siphon votes from incumbent President Joe Biden.

While Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians have secure places on the Georgia ballot, other parties and independent candidates must qualify.

Democratic Party of Georgia Executive Director Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye said in a statement that “we take the nomination process very seriously and believe everyone should follow the rules,” saying Kennedy, independent Cornel West, Claudia De la Cruz of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Jill Stein of the Green Party “have not faithfully observed the state of Georgia’s election laws.”

“They have missed numerous statutory deadlines, skipped filing fees, submitted the wrong names on the nomination petitions, and some failed to hold conventions” Olasanoye said. “None of these candidates are qualified to be on the Georgia ballot.”

But candidates say Democrats are betraying their professed principles and trying to block voter choices unfairly.

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Larry Sharpe, is outreach director for American Values 2024, an independent political action committee that supports Kennedy. He said ballot access laws in states have grown “draconian.”

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“Most voters now are not affiliated,” Sharpe said. “What are they telling us? They want other choices.”

Spokesperson for alternative candidates say they’re also seeing challenges in Delaware, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia

“We expect to be challenged in every state that we file in this year,” said Rick Lass, ballot access director for Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

Bernard Tamas, a professor at Georgia’s Valdosta State University who studies third parties, says such challenges are “standard.” Even if they’re unsuccessful, he said challenges bleed resources from candidates who don’t have as much money to begin with. Tamas said opposition from Democrats appears more intense in 2024, though.

“The third party candidates are stronger and and it’s the Democrats worrying more,” he said.

Until this year, the only road to getting on the ballot in Georgia was by collecting signatures from 7,500 registered voters statewide. But Georgia’s Republican-majority legislature passed a law this year directing the secretary of state to also place on the ballot candidates of any party that makes ballots in at least 20 other states. That move was widely interpreted as trying to make trouble for Biden, although former President Donald Trump’s campaign has also regarded the Kennedy campaign with suspicion.

Kennedy and Cornel West, seeking access as independents in Georgia, can only make the ballot through the petition process. Claudia De la Cruz, the nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, also submitted petitions.

All three say they submitted enough signatures before a July 9 deadline. Currently, voter registrations and signatures are being verified by county election offices, said Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. That verification process is supposed to be complete by Aug. 1.

Meanwhile, the Green Party, which has nominated Stein, says it aims to make Georgia ballots using the 20-state rule.

But a lawyer for the Democratic Party of Georgia, representing three voters, sent letters to Raffensperger’s office on Friday arguing that efforts by Kennedy, West, De la Cruz and Stein are all legally defective, triggering hearings before an administrative law judge. Raffensperger will make findings based off a report from the judge, but either side could challenge Raffensperger’s findings in state court.

While some other states routinely put minor-party and independent candidates on ballots, Georgia voters haven’t had more than four options since 1948. The last time there were any candidates besides a Republican, Democrat and Libertarian was in 2000, when independent Pat Buchanan qualified.

Democrats argue De la Cruz’s Party for Socialism and Liberation and Stein’s Green Party haven’t properly registered as political parties in Georgia and didn’t publish required legal advertisements before their conventions. They say that bars each from qualifying for Georgia’s ballot under the 20-state rule.

Democrats also argue that at least some of the signatures on the petitions filed for Kennedy, West and De la Cruz are invalid because the petitions are wrongly or incompletely filled out. Democrats also argue that Kennedy and West, as independents, must submit separate petitions for all 16 electors. The challengers say West’s electors didn’t qualify before an earlier June 21 deadline, and that electors for Kennedy, West and De la Cruz all failed to pay required $1.50 filing fees.

But Walter Smolarek, a spokesperson for De la Cruz. said that sort of nit-picking only “seeks to limit the options of Georgia voters.”

“We reject the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party in claiming to be the protectors of democracy from Trump as they infringe on the rights of tens of thousands of voters who want more options on the Georgia ballot,” Smolarek said in a statement.