De la Cruz, Stein and West can appear on Georgia’s ballot, top election official says

Caption

Voting booths are pictured inside the Dona Ana County Government Center during early voting for the upcoming midterm elections in Las Cruces, New Mexico, U.S., October 24, 2022.

Credit: REUTERS/Paul Ratje

Georgia’s top election official has greenlit a trio of independent and third-party presidential candidates after an administration law judge said they should not appear on the ballot this November.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger cast aside a judge’s conclusions from earlier in the week that socialist candidate Claudia De la Cruz and independent candidate Cornel West should be kept off the ballot because of a filing error.

Raffensperger has also given Green Party candidate Jill Stein the go-ahead, according to media reports.

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Independent candidate Cornel West appeared at a protest outside last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Credit: Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

The three candidates will join Democrat Kamala Harris, Republican Donald Trump and Libertarian Chase Oliver, making for a crowded ballot on Nov. 5.

Raffensperger said the challenges against independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were moot after he withdrew from the race and endorsed Republican candidate Donald Trump. Kennedy has since formally withdrawn in Georgia.

State Democrats had objected to these third-party and independent candidates appearing on the ballot in Georgia, where President Joe Biden narrowly won by less than 12,000 votes in 2020.

Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye, executive director of the Democratic Party of Georgia, slammed Raffensperger’s decision Thursday, saying the secretary of state unilaterally re-added West, De la Cruz and Stein to the ballot.

Olasanoye signaled that the party’s challenge may not be over.

“A judge affirmed that none of these candidates were qualified to be on the Georgia ballot. The Secretary of State ignored the judge’s ruling that found each party failed to play by the rules. State election law is clear, and we are exploring our options,” Olasanoye said in a statement.

Chief Judge Michael Malihi with the Office of State Administrative Hearings had concluded that the electors for West and De la Cruz should have filed their paperwork in their own names, not the candidate’s. But Raffensperger said that would have meant filing nomination petitions with the requisite 7,500 signatures for each elector, which he argued would violate a federal court order.

“This is a victory for democracy,” De la Cruz said in a statement. “The Democratic Party wanted to restrict the choices available to Georgia voters because they didn’t want to compete with a socialist campaign that offers real solutions to the huge problems facing working people.”

“We are proud to have stood up for our rights and the right of everyone in Georgia to vote for the candidate of their choosing. But this is not the end of the fight. Now, we are preparing to defend this legal victory from any appeal filed by the Democratic Party’s well-funded army of lawyers who are waging war on third parties nationwide,” she added.

Stein supporters have been trying to get their candidate on the ballot using a new Georgia law that created a pathway for candidates who are on the ballot in 20 other states.

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Georgia Recorder.