The Georgia Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday about whether Claudia De la Cruz and Cornel West are qualified to be on the Nov. 5 presidential ballot.
But whatever the justices decide, it’s too late to strike their names. Instead, Georgia’s highest court will determine whether a vote for either candidate will count.
Overseas and military ballots, printed before two Fulton County Superior Court judges disqualified the far-left candidates in separate rulings earlier this month, were mailed out last week listing West and De la Cruz alongside four other presidential candidates, including Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.
A central question the court will answer is whether signatures on petitions submitted by the West and De la Cruz campaigns must be filed by the candidates or by one of the 16 potential electors representing them.
West and De la Cruz cleared the minimum of 7,500 petition signatures to qualify for the ballot, but state law requires those signatures to be submitted in the name of one of a candidate’s state electors. The lower court decisions held that none of their presidential electors submitted signatures in their own names.
Attorney Bryan Tyson, representing West, said the petitions were properly done. “Georgia law requires nominating petitions to be submitted by independent candidates for president,” he said.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
The Fulton rulings overturned a decision by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who had approved West and De la Cruz to be on the ballot over the objections of state Democrats who fear the candidates could siphon away votes from Harris. Raffensperger’s decision overturned the recommendation of an administrative law judge who initially ruled the candidates were not properly qualified.
Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump by fewer than 12,000 votes in Georgia in the 2020 election. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s latest poll shows Trump and Harris in a tight race for the White House, while West, De la Cruz, Libertarian Chase Oliver and the Green Party’s Jill Stein collectively drew support from less than 1% of those surveyed. A few thousand votes potentially could determine who wins Georgia’s 16 electoral votes.
Justice Andrew Pinson asked how Raffensperger, a Republican, would remedy having two unqualified candidates on the presidential ballot if West and De la Cruz were disqualified. Attorney Elizabeth Young, representing Raffensperger before the court, said it’s too late to remove West and De la Cruz from the ballot in part because there is not enough official ballot paper to reprint absentee ballots.
It also could be too late to reprogram the state’s thousands of touchscreen voting machines across the state.
If the two minor presidential candidates were disqualified, notices would be posted at polling locations and in absentee ballots that a vote for either candidate would not count, Young said.
Early voting starts Oct. 15. If the state Supreme Court reverses the Fulton decisions, it would be the first time since 1948 that Georgia voters could choose from six presidential candidates.
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