ATLANTA — Georgia voters could see a crowded presidential ballot in November’s election. In addition to Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, at least five other candidates are making headway to get on the state ballot.
Third-party candidates are highly unlikely to win this year’s presidential election, but they may get more attention from disgruntled voters.
At a noisy protest staged a few blocks away from the Atlanta Trump-Biden debate in June, there was a fringe presidential candidate -- spotted by the Atlanta Civic Circle news site. He wore a shirt saying “Literally Anybody Else.” The former schoolteacher had been gathering ballot access signatures. He told 11Alive's Dallas sister station he had made “Literally Anybody Else” his legal name.
"You know, it’s not necessarily about me as a person but about literally anybody else as an idea,” the candidate said in an interview.
In an election where polls show the two elderly major party candidates are underwhelming many voters, third-party alternatives are drawing at least some consideration.
Chase Oliver will be on Georgia’s ballot. He unsuccessfully ran as a Libertarian for a Georgia U.S. Senate seat two years ago. This year, Oliver is the Libertarian nominee for president.
"I liken the two-party system to pro wrestling. People in a ring who are really pretending to fight each other and getting their fundraising up, and then they go backstage, and they laugh about how they earned so much money and got so much attention," Oliver said during an Atlanta Press Club debate in October 2022.
In addition to Biden and Trump, Oliver is the only third-party candidate who’s sure to appear on the Georgia ballot in November.
But likely Green Party candidate Jill Stein has petitioned the state for ballot access, as have independent candidates Robert Kennedy Jr., Claudia de la Cruz and Cornell West. They met a deadline this week, and the state is verifying the authenticity of the signatures.
This year, the Georgia legislature quietly passed a bill making third-party ballot access easier. If a third-party candidate appears on ballots in 20 other states, the candidate will qualify to appear on Georgia ballots. The Green Party is likely to qualify under this new provision.
However, according to political scientist and University of North Georgia professor Carl Cavalli, if they do get on the ballot, their odds of success are slim at best.
"Third-party candidates are disadvantaged because they have to finish first, and they rarely finish first," Cavalli stated. "And as people become aware of that later in the election season, they abandon the third party."
Georgia delivered its electoral votes to third-party presidential candidate George Wallace in 1968, at a time when few Georgia voters cast ballots for Republicans. Richard Nixon won that election.
Despite his effort at the protest, the presidential candidate named "Literally Anybody Else" told 11Alive News his new name would not appear on the Georgia ballot because he couldn’t gather enough required signatures.