In March, two Georgia state Senators, Lee Hawkins and David Adelman, of the 49th and 42nd Senate districts respectively, vacated their seats for other opportunities. Adelman departed to become the ambassador to Singapore, while Hawkins resigned to run for the U.S. Congress seat vacated by gubernatorial candidate Nathan Deal. The resulting special elections will contain two Libertarians on the ballot. Both David Montané running for the 42nd District and Brandon Givens running in the 49th qualified and filed on Monday afternoon.
It is not often that Georgia voters see Libertarian candidates on the ballot, as Georgia law states that in order for a candidate to get on the ballot he or she must collect and turn in petitions equaling 5 percent of the registered voters from the district in which he or she plans to run. If a candidate plans to run statewide, he or she must get signatures from 1 percent of registered voters in the state.
The 1 percent rule also applies to parties attempting to receive a line on the ballot. Provided they are successful they are still not a “party” as defined by Georgia law, they are a “political body” and they must receive 1 percent of the registered vote in any statewide race to maintain that status. In order to receive an automatic ballot line for all candidates and major party status, a candidate for governor or president must receive 20 percent of the popular vote nationally in a general election. If a party falls below 20 percent, it loses major party status.
As noted previously, Richard Winger at Ballot Access News has stated that Georgia has the worst ballot access laws in the nation. “There is no other state with a law that has kept all minor party or independent candidates off the ballot for such an important office as US House for decades. Every state has had minor party and/or independent candidates on the ballot in recent years for president, and US Senate (although one must go back to 2000 to make this completely true, for president, because of Oklahoma),” says Winger. “Every state except Georgia has had multiple minor party and/or independent candidates for US House during either of the last two elections. Georgia law for US House is absolutely the worst ballot access law of any type in the nation.”
“These two gentlemen provide voters in their districts an opportunity to elect someone with a voice for liberty,” says Brett Bittner, Operations Director of the Libertarian Party of Georgia. “Either of them being elected to the offices they seek would provide all Georgians with a principled state Senator that is not controlled by their party. Reform of these draconian ballot access laws is needed, so that Georgia voters have a real choice at the ballot box at every election, and not just special elections.”
