by Dave Williams | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Presidential candidates Cornel West and Claudia De la Cruz will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot in Georgia, but votes for them won’t count.
That’s the result of a Georgia Supreme Court ruling Wednesday disqualifying West and De la Cruz. The expedited decision, which came just one day after the justices heard oral arguments in the case, upheld two lower court decisions declaring that electors for the two candidates filed improper nominating petitions on behalf of their candidates.
The ruling means only four qualified candidates will appear on the Georgia ballot: former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, Libertarian Chase Oliver, and the Green Party’s Jill Stein.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Young, representing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, told the justices Wednesday it’s too late to remove West and De la Cruz from the ballot, as military and overseas absentee ballots already have gone out.
Young suggested that polling places throughout the state be required to post notices that votes for either candidate will not count, which the court incorporated in Wednesday’s ruling.
Both the lower court rulings and the state Supreme Court decision reversed an order from Raffensperger late last month that West and De la Cruz appear on the ballot.
The Democratic Party of Georgia appealed Raffensperger’s decision, while the state Republican Party intervened in an effort to uphold the secretary’s order.
With independent West and socialist De la Cruz running to the left of Democrat Harris, they could have siphoned votes away from Harris to the benefit of Republican Trump.
A Quinnipiac University poll earlier this month showed West and De la Cruz each with only 1% of the Georgia vote. But in what is expected to be a tight race, those votes could have made a difference.
