posted September 17, 2004 02:21 PM            

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., urged the Florida Supreme Court to allow Ralph Nader on the state ballot after it hears an appeal Friday by the independent presidential candidate.

A state judge rejected Nader's efforts to be on the ballot as the candidate of the Reform Party, which the judge said is no longer a legitimate national party under state law. The state supreme court said it will issue a ruling shortly after hearing the appeal.

``I believe it would be a mistake to let a set of inequitable ballot rules keep a legitimate presidential candidate off the ballot,'' McCain said in a statement released Thursday night by The Reform Institute, a political and educational organization he chairs.
``These obstacles discourage public participation in elections by denying voters the right to vote for their preferred candidate. Keeping Nader off the ballot in the hope that his voters will be forced to support another candidate is patently unfair to those Floridians who, for whatever reason, have decided he's their man,'' McCain said.

Democrats have challenged efforts by Nader to be listed on the ballots in more than a dozen states.

posted September 17, 2004 02:30 PM            

Moves against Nader limit ballot choice
Democrats mount aggressive campaign

September 15, 2004

Ralph Nader probably won't get our vote. But we're wondering if some Democrats haven't gone overboard in taking his ballot status to the courts.

The state Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court Monday to keep Nader off the ballot because, it argues, Nader and running mate Pete Camejo haven't been Reform Party members for a year and didn't follow other Colorado election laws requiring minor candidates to qualify through a nominating convention. If Democrats succeed, Colorado would join a list of states that include Arizona, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Virginia where Nader has been thrown off the November ballot.

What's motivating Democrats, of course, is Nader's spoiler role in the defeat of Al Gore in 2000, and they don't want a repeat. In 2000, Nader won 5 percent of Colorado's presidential votes running on the Green Party ticket. Although that didn't affect the state's electoral votes - George W. Bush won them with 51 percent of the vote - the most recent poll numbers for Colorado show Bush and John Kerry in a neck-and-neck race. Given that Nader stands further to the left than either Gore or Kerry, common wisdom suggests that with no option to vote for Nader, the lion's share of Nader votes would go to Democrats.

Of course, it's perfectly legal for the Democrats to play at such hardball politics. Their lawsuit is at least as transparently partisan as Amendment 36, the state ballot initiative Democrats are pushing to give Kerry a few additional electoral votes. Still, Ralph Nader ought to be following the state's election laws - even if he's essentially right that the aggressive campaign to bar him from ballots in Colorado and elsewhere is a "sordid undemocratic tactic, an affront to voters and a threat to electoral choice."

Indeed, a second suit filed Monday by Ballot Project Inc., formed by Democrats for the sole purpose of throwing up roadblocks to Nader's candidacy, shows the ferocity with which the candidate is being pursued and harassed from state to state. Committed to squandering Nader's resources and diverting his campaign's energy, Ballot Project is helping local Democrats in more than 20 states, including Colorado, find pro bono lawyers to challenge Nader's efforts to get on state ballots.

This might not be remarkable if it weren't for some of the bizarre challenges to Nader's ballot access. In Nevada, for example, Democrats contested 11,571 out of 11,888 signature petitions, more than twice the number needed to nominate a candidate for that state's presidential ballot. A judge threw out the suit.

In Oregon, a Nader nominating convention was hijacked by Democrats who flooded the convention and then refused to sign the candidate's petitions. Because attendance was limited, the large number of Democrats prevented Nader from gaining ballot access. Nader's campaign has complained about similar fishy tactics in Illinois, Arizona and West Virginia.

posted September 17, 2004 02:37 PM            

President Bush isn't the only candidate to experience the viciousness of the multimillion-dollar Democrat goon squads. Ralph Nader is fed up with John Kerry's "gangsters."

Naderites in Oregon say Kerry's henchmen in Big Labor "are resorting to 'gangster' tactics by bullying and intimidating signature-gatherers in hopes of thwarting Nader's petition drive," the Associated Press reported today.
Service Employees International Union, which wants Kerry to win so even more bureaucrats will be on the taxpayers' dole, claims it is merely try to stop Naderites from engaging in a very Democrat vice: fraud.

But Nader's coordinator in Oregon, Greg Kafoury, cited as just one example the two union members who knocked on a petition-gatherer's door, told her she was under "investigation" and left her "badly shaken and intimidated."

"We have been sabotaged and smeared, and now we have had our people bullied by people who knock on doors at night," Kafoury said.

Nader wrote in the Los Angeles Times:

"Though the Democrats have the right to robustly oppose my independent presidential campaign, they don't have the right to engage in dirty tricks designed to deny millions of voters the opportunity to choose who should be the next president.

"But that's what is happening. Across the country, the Democratic Party, state Democratic partisans, corporate lobbyists and law firms are making an unprecedented effort to keep the Nader-Camejo ticket off the ballot. It's a sordid, undemocratic tactic, an affront to voters and a threat to electoral choice."

He lashed out at those who are anti-choice on practically every issue except infanticide. "The so-called prochoice Democrats do not want voters to have a political choice; they want them stuck with only two candidates."

Among the Democrat dirty tricks he pointed out: clogging his convention with Oregon with Democrats who won't sign his petition, hiring "corporate law firms to block our ballot efforts with litigation on frivolous technical grounds," illegally using state employees in Illinois to attack his petitions and "[t]rying to exclude thousands of signatures in Illinois because the signatories had moved since registering to vote -- even though they still lived in Illinois and even though they were still registered voters."

posted September 18, 2004 01:42 PM            

quik

The Democrat party has been attacking Nader's right to be on the ballot in many states which denies his voters an opportunity to express their preference for the office of President.

I only posted the articles to show what shameless liars and frauds the Democrat leadership really are. You see, it was those same Democrats who whined, cried and wet themselves when some people were turned away from the polling places in Florida in 2000 or had their ballots disqualified. Reason, they were not registered to vote....or improperly registered or convicted felons. At that time there was a hue and cry from the Democrats that everyone should be allowed to vote for their preference......it's a democracy after all, now isn't it?

Now we find that same disingenuous bunch attempting to disqualify Nader in every state he attempts to register to be on the ballot.

The issue has been settled in the state of FL by the FL Supreme Court decision yesterday. Nader is on the FL ballot and will likely stay on the ballot.

Just an example of the differences between the Republicans and Democrats. You never heard George H.W. Bush saying Perot should be excluded from being on the ballot in any state....nor did you hear of any attempt to restrict Perot from participating in the Presidential debates. Perot was there and his voters were mostly independents and disaffected Republicans who were angry at Bush for breaking his promise. Remember "Read my lips, no new taxes"?

Perot pulled 17% of the votes in the 1992 election. Most of those votes would have gone to Bush if Perot hadn't been on the ballot and Bill Clinton would never have been elected President. Still, you never heard Bush whine, stamp his feet, hold his breath and turn blue.....like the Democrats are now over Nader being on the ballot in some states.

One interesting fact did come out of the 2000 election though. The Miami Herald ran a story about the felons who actually did vote...illegally. Seems 87% of the felons voted for Democrat Algore. You can draw your own conclusions about that

Fla. Supreme Court Puts Nader on Ballot
NewsMax Wires

Saturday, Sept. 18, 2004
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Ralph Nader is back on Florida's ballot -- probably for good this time.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled 6-1 Friday that he can run as the Reform Party presidential candidate in the November election.

The decision met a Saturday deadline for mailing 25,000 ballots to overseas voters, most of them military personnel, and ended a dizzying two weeks during which Nader was on and off the ballot.

"This is a case that should have been thrown out of the courts sooner," said Kevin Zeese, a spokesman for the Nader campaign.

Also Friday, a judge ruled that Nader would stay on the presidential ballot in Colorado. In New Mexico, a judge barred Nader from appearing on the state's ballot.

As the Green Party candidate in 2000, Nader attracted 97,000 Florida votes -- and most Democrats and many Republicans agree that those votes cost Democrat Al Gore the presidency.

President Bush won the state by 537 votes after three weeks of recounts and legal fighting -- much of it before Florida's high court.

This year, the Reform Party of Florida submitted Nader to the state as its candidate. The Florida Democratic Party and several individual voters challenged his certification.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe issued a statement Friday saying: "The fact that Ralph Nader secured a place on the Florida ballot by means of the Pat Buchanan Reform Party speaks for itself. In state after state, Nader has become an extension of the Republican Party and their corporate backers."

The key legal challenge against Nader was the contention that the Reform Party was no longer a bona fide national party and didn't nominate Nader in a national convention -- as required by Florida law -- but did it in a conference call three months earlier.

Legitimacy of Reform Party Convention

Officials with the party and Nader argued that the Reform Party convention may have been small but that it had legitimately confirmed him as their presidential nominee.

The Reform Party formed in 1995 out of Ross Perot's 1992 and 1996 presidential bids; Buchanan ran as its candidate in 2000. But the party has seen its membership decline amid infighting in recent years. Its national treasurer last month said the party had $18.18 in the bank.

A state judge last week ordered Secretary of State Glenda Hood, Florida's top elections official, to strike Nader from the ballot. Hood, who was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush, complied.

But when Hood appealed that order, an automatic suspension was triggered. So Nader was back on the ballot.

On Wednesday, Circuit Judge Kevin Davey again ordered Hood to take Nader off as the case was appealed to the state's high court.

Now, he is back on after the Supreme Court's decision.

Mark Herron, an attorney for the Democrats, said appealing the decision was unlikely.

The Reform Party of Florida greeted the decision with relief, said spokesman Patrick Slevin.

Alia Faraj, a spokeswoman for Hood, said elections supervisors would be able to meet Saturday's deadline.

"All along the secretary's goal ... was finality," Faraj said.

In Friday's majority opinion, Florida's high court wrote that it couldn't tell whether state lawmakers wanted the terms "national party" and "national convention" interpreted strictly or broadly.

"In the absence of more specific statutory criteria or guidance from the Legislature, we are unable to conclude that a statutory violation occurred," the court wrote.

posted September 23, 2004 12:03 PM            

Oregon's Democrat secretary of state, Bill Bradbury, an unabashed supporter of John Kerry, has succeeded after all in his scheme to dump Ralph Nader from the swing state's presidential ballot........

Marion County Judge Paul Lipscomb had faulted Bradbury for using unwritten rules - i.e., doing whatever he felt like - to deem some petitions for the independent candidate unworthy.

But Oregon's Supreme Court, acting as partisan as Dan Rather and Mary Mapes combined, ruled Wednesday in favor of Bradbury and fellow Democrats.

Nader, like Bugs Bunny, says he'll fight all the way to the highest court in the land.

What does the self-styled consumer activist think of the Dems? "The Democratic Party, under the influence of its corporate supremacists, is a gutless, spineless, clueless and hapless party and needs to be challenged by liberal Democrats," Nader said Tuesday.

posted September 23, 2004 12:48 PM            

I see that as the major difference between the Rs and the Ds (not individuals, I'm talking about the party organizations themselves peeps, before you go getting all up in arms) Dems will call something unfair, only because they didn't think of it first, they will judge it as being bad, then turn around and somehow justify the exact same behavoir themselves.

Speaking of which, I saw a thing on TV about the Dem party trying to get donations NOW in preperation to fight for a recount in court in Nov.