A bill has been introduced in the Georgia legislature to lower the threshold for non-statewide independent and non-establishment candidates from 5% of the registered voters to 2% of the actual voters in the most recent race.
““The worst ballot access law in the U.S. is the Georgia law on how an independent or minor party candidate gets on the ballot for U.S. House,” said Richard Winger, editor and publisher of Ballot Access News.
No non-establishment party candidate has made the ballot for the US House since 1943, when the current petition law was set. No independent candidate has been on the ballot for the US House since 1964.
Currently, a party needs to get 20% of the vote in a gubernatorial or presidential race to become a recognized party. If a party gets 1% of the vote in a statewide race, the party can run statewide candidates in the next general election. To get statewide candidates on the ballot, a party must submit signatures equal to 1% of the registered voters, which in 2014 was over 51,000 signatures.
Click here to read the full article.
