Georgia voters are set to have five choices for president as Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger reinstated Cornel West and Claudia De la Cruz to the ballot. Raffensperger, a Republican, overturned a ruling from an administrative law judge that initially removed West and De la Cruz from the ballot. West is an independent candidate, while De la Cruz is the Party for Socialism and Liberation nominee but is running as an independent in Georgia.
However, Raffensperger upheld the decision to bar Green Party nominee Jill Stein from the ballots. The challenge against independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was rendered moot after Kennedy officially withdrew his candidacy by submitting papers to Georgia on Monday. Last week, Kennedy announced the suspension of his campaign and withdrew from the ballot in key states, endorsing Republican Donald Trump.
Democrats who aimed to remove West and De la Cruz from the ballot may potentially appeal the ruling, though time is limited as Georgia begins mailing out military and overseas ballots on Sept. 17.
If the decisions remain, Georgia voters will have five presidential candidates to choose from: Trump, West, De la Cruz, Democrat Kamala Harris, and Libertarian Chase Oliver. This would mark the first time since 1948 that Georgians have had more than four choices for president, as Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians usually automatically qualify for elections in Georgia.
Democrats initiated legal challenges against West, De la Cruz, Kennedy, and Stein in an effort to prevent candidates from drawing votes away from Harris, especially after Joe Biden won Georgia by a margin of fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020.
Although the state Democratic Party argued that petitions for independent candidates must be filed in the name of the 16 presidential electors, not the candidates themselves, citing a law change in 2017, Raffensperger concluded that one petition for De la Cruz or West met the state law requirements. The Secretary of State pointed out that a 2016 court decision limits the state to requesting only 7,500 signatures on a petition for statewide office, a threshold that De la Cruz and West both surpassed according to county findings.
Georgia was among several states where challenges against third-party and independent candidates were filed by Democrats and their affiliated groups. The Republican Party in Georgia intervened in the process to advocate for all candidates to remain on the ballot.
The Green Party sought to leverage a recent Georgia law that grants ballot access to candidates of a party qualifying in at least 20 other states to include Jill Stein on the Georgia ballot. However, both Raffensperger and Judge Michael Malihi agreed that the Green Party did not demonstrate qualification in at least 20 other states.
