Ralph Nader 2004 presidential campaign: Difference between revisions
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On [[April 5]], [[2004]], Nader failed in an attempt to get on the [[Oregon]] ballot. "Unwritten rules" disqualified over 700 valid voter signatures, all of which had already been verified by county elections officers, who themselves signed and dated every sheet with an affidavit of authenticity (often with a county seal as well). This subtraction left Nader 218 short of the 15,306 needed. He vowed to gather the necessary signatures in a petition drive. Secretary of State [[Bill Bradbury]] disqualified many of his signatures as fraudulent; the Marion County Circuit Court ruled that this action was unconstitutional as the criteria for Bradbury's disqualifications were based upon "unwritten rules" not found in electoral code, but the state Supreme Court ultimately reversed this ruling. Nader appealed this decision to the US Supreme Court, but a decision did not arrive before the 2004 election. |
On [[April 5]], [[2004]], Nader failed in an attempt to get on the [[Oregon]] ballot. "Unwritten rules" disqualified over 700 valid voter signatures, all of which had already been verified by county elections officers, who themselves signed and dated every sheet with an affidavit of authenticity (often with a county seal as well). This subtraction left Nader 218 short of the 15,306 needed. He vowed to gather the necessary signatures in a petition drive. Secretary of State [[Bill Bradbury]] disqualified many of his signatures as fraudulent; the Marion County Circuit Court ruled that this action was unconstitutional as the criteria for Bradbury's disqualifications were based upon "unwritten rules" not found in electoral code, but the state Supreme Court ultimately reversed this ruling. Nader appealed this decision to the US Supreme Court, but a decision did not arrive before the 2004 election. |
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The following list, based on information from Nader's campaign website, summarizes whether Nader appeared on a state's ballot, and whether that status had been disputed as of late October 2004, by Nader or his opponents: |
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Nader failed to gain a place on the [[Massachusetts]] ballot, though his efforts to do so faced no Democratic legal challenges (Kerry's ability to win his home state was never in doubt). Nader fell some 1500 signatures short of the state's 10,000 signature requirement, and his campaign blasted the state's electoral requirements as "arcane."<ref>[http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/09/01/kept_off_ballot_nader_may_sue/ Kept off ballot, Nader may sue - The Boston Globe<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> |
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<table><tr><td valign="top"> |
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* [[Alabama]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Alaska]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Arizona]]: disputed -- <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[Arkansas]]: disputed -- on the ballot [http://www.katv.com/news/stories/0904/172109.html] |
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* [[California]]: <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[Colorado]]: disputed -- on the ballot |
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* [[District of Columbia|Columbia]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Connecticut]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Delaware]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Florida]]: disputed -- on the ballot [http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6270086] |
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* [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]]: <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[Hawaii]]: disputed -- <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[Idaho]]: disputed -- <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[Iowa]]: disputed -- on the ballot |
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* [[Illinois]]: disputed -- <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[Indiana]]: <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[Kansas]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Kentucky]]: disputed -- on the ballot |
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* [[Louisiana]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Maine]]: disputed -- ruled on the ballot |
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* [[Maryland]]: disputed -- on the ballot |
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* [[Massachusetts]]: <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[Michigan]]: disputed -- on the ballot |
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* [[Minnesota]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Mississippi]]: disputed -- on the ballot |
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* [[Missouri]]: <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[Montana]]: on the ballot |
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</td><td valign="top"> |
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* [[Nebraska]]: disputed -- on the ballot |
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* [[Nevada]]: disputed -- on the ballot |
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* [[New Hampshire]]: disputed -- on the ballot |
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* [[New Jersey]]: on the ballot |
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* [[New Mexico]]: on the ballot |
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* [[New York]]: on the ballot |
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* [[North Carolina]]: disputed -- <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[North Dakota]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Ohio]]: <font color="red">off the ballot</font> [http://www.thebostonchannel.com/politics/3842435/detail.html] [http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=3&u=/ap/20041026/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_nader] |
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* [[Oklahoma]]: <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[Oregon]]: disputed -- <font color="red">off the ballot</font> (''Kucera v. Bradbury'') [http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/front_page/109594064689030.xml?oregonian?fpfp] |
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* [[Pennsylvania]]: disputed -- <font color="red">off the ballot,</font> (but on the absentee ballot sent out Oct 29) |
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* [[Rhode Island]]: on the ballot |
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* [[South Carolina]]: on the ballot |
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* [[South Dakota]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Tennessee]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Texas]]: disputed -- <font color="red">off the ballot</font> |
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* [[Utah]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Vermont]]: unknown |
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* [[Virginia]]: <font color="red">off the ballot</font> [http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031777804857&path=!news&s=1045855934842] |
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* [[Washington]]: on the ballot |
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* [[Wisconsin]]: disputed -- ruled off the ballot |
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* [[West Virginia]]: disputed -- on the ballot |
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* [[Wyoming]]: on the ballot |
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</td></tr></table> |
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Of the [[swing state]]s, Nader was off the ballot in 4 (MO, OH, PA, VA), disputed off in 3 (AZ, OR, WI), disputed unknown in 1 (IA), disputed on in 8 (AR, CO, FL, ME, MI, NV, NH, WV), and on in 5 (LA, MN, NM, TN, WA). |
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Nader also failed to gather the requisite 153,035 signatures to place on the [[California]] ballot. The campaign submitted an estimated 83,000 signatures. The Nader campaign briefly flirted with the idea of convincing the California Green Party to nominate Nader instead of David Cobb. Cobb secured the Green Party nomination, and pledged that his campaign would not campaign aggressively in close states to avoid charges of being a “spoiler.”<ref>Rick Lyman. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E3DA1738F934A15755C0A9629C8B63 Greens Pick a Candidate Not Named Nader.] ''The New York Times''. June 27, 2004</ref> |
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In some states where Nader's name was not printed on the ballot, [[write-in]] votes for the Nader/Camejo ticket were still permitted and counted. |
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On [[August 19]], [[2004]], the Illinois State Board of Elections ruled that Nader lacked enough valid signatures to qualify for access on the state ballot.<ref>http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-nader20.html</ref> Nader appealed the ruling, claiming that Illinois's requirement of 25,000 valid signatures was an onerous burden on third-party candidates, and that the petition deadline was too early in the year. This suit was rejected by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly, who found that "Illinois' petition deadline and signature requirements... did not impose a severe burden on persons like Nader seeking to pursue an independent presidential candidacy."<ref>http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-nader24.html</ref> The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed this decision on [[September 22]], [[2004]].<ref>[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/elections/chi-0409230246sep23,1,553015.story]</ref> The court, headed by [[Richard Posner|Judge Richard Posner]] pointedly noted that Nader could have filed his suit in February, just after declaring his candidacy, and contended that, given Illinois's population of 12 million, a signature requirement of 25,000 was not onerous.<ref>[http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/fdocs/docs.fwx?submit=showbr&shofile=04-3183_023.pdf Nader14.doc<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> |
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In [[Alabama]] and [[New York]], a ballot line appeared in which running mate [[Peter Camejo]] was replaced with '''Jan D. Pierce''', a Vice President of the [[Communications Workers of America]] and in 2000 was head of "Labor for Nader." Pierce had also been filed as his running mate in Ohio,<ref> |
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On [[September 18]], [[2004]], the [[Florida Supreme Court]] ordered that Nader be included on the 2004 ballot in [[Florida]] as the [[Reform Party of the United States of America|Reform Party]] candidate. The court rejected the arguments that the Reform Party did not meet the requirements of the Florida election code for access to the ballot — that the party must be a "national [[political party|party]]" and that it must have nominated its candidate in a "[[U.S. presidential nominating convention|national convention]]" — and therefore Nader should have attempted to file as an independent candidate. Specifically, the court ruled that the term "national party" must be interpreted as broadly as possible. The Reform Party has a ballot line in only some U.S. states. |
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[http://server6.sos.state.oh.us/boe/cbeinfo/directives/2004/mainDocs/Dir2004-27.pdf] ([[PDF]])</ref><ref>[http://server6.sos.state.oh.us/boe/cbeinfo/memorandums/2004/04pdfMemos/Memo08-26-04Letters.pdf] ([[PDF]])</ref> where they failed to get on the ballot. In [[Montana]] Camejo was replaced with '''Karen Sanchirico''', an [[Ada County, Idaho]] [http://www.idahogreenparty.org Green Party] activist and founder of [http://myweb.cableone.net/bembexia/idaho Idaho Patriots].<ref>[http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2004/2004presgenresults.pdf.0211051334 2004 Official Presidential General Election Results]</ref> |
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Nader faced an uphill battle to achieve [[ballot access]] in [[Pennsylvania]]. Although his campaign claimed to have turned in over 50,000 signatures by the August deadline, the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] launched legal challenges. A series of Commonwealth Court decisions in the fall of 2004 came to a final conclusion on September 2, 2004. On that day, the state's highest Court ruled that Nader could not appear on Pennsylvania's ballot as an Independent candidate, as he was seeking the Reform Party's nomination elsewhere.<ref>[http://www.votenader.org/ballot_access/pennsylvania/ Ballot Access—Ralph on the Ballot! - Nader for President 2004 - www.votenader.org<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> When the Nader campaign moved to block the examination of its signatures, Pennsylvania Judge James Garner Collins rejected it, declaring that the campaign's plea "tortured the law."<ref>[http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1095434459835 Law.com - Nader's Lawyer 'Tortured the Law'<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Pennsylvania brought the Nader campaign another black eye: Nader was sued by a lawyer representing homeless people in the state who claimed that they had been hired to gather signatures, but not paid for their efforts.<ref>http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=Potter&action=getComplete&ref=2691</ref> |
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Nader also fell short of gaining the 3,711 signatures necessary to appear on the ballot in [[Hawaii]]. More than half of the 7,000 signatures submitted by the campaign were determined to be invalid or incomplete by state officials.<ref>[http://www.kpua.net/news.php?id=3342 KPUA.net - KPUA Hawaii News - Nader campaign fails to collect enough signatures to get on ballot<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> |
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==Notes== |
==Notes== |
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Revision as of 21:18, 11 August 2008
Ralph Nader ran for the office of U.S. Presidency in the 2004 election, as he also had in several previous elections. In 1996 and 2000, Nader was the candidate of the Green Party; in the 2004 election, however, he ran as an independent candidate. He received 463,653 votes, for 0.4% of the total vote. Nader won the 2004 endorsement of the Reform Party USA, and thus appeared on the ballot as the Reform Party candidate in several states. In some states, Nader was on the ballot as an independent candidate, while in other states, Nader was deemed not to have met the requirements for ballot access. In Delaware, Nader accepted the endorsement of the Independent Party of Delaware on August 15. [3] In New York Nader was nominated by the Independence Party at their party convention, and also appeared on the ballot under the Peace and Justice Party ballot lines.
Populist Party
In states where ballot access is more readily available by forming a new political party than by filing as an independent candidate, the Ralph Nader campaign chose to create the Populist Party. Nader appeared on the 2004 general election ballot under the designation "A Better Life" in the State of Minnesota and "The Better Life" in the State of Louisiana.
This Populist Party has no connection either to the much earlier American political party of that name, or to the late-twentieth century Populist Party, which ran candidates such as David Duke and Bo Gritz and was widely regarded as a racist, white supremacist organization.
It was expected that the new Populist Party organization would exist only for the strictly limited purpose of achieving ballot access for Ralph Nader in 2004. However, an effort is underway by the Populist Party of Maryland to field candidates for governor, other statewide seats and at the local level for the State Assembly, county and municipal positions in the 2005 and 2006 elections.
Meeting with Congressional Black Caucus
Nader attended a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. The session soon turned into a shouting exchange and several CBC members stormed out. Nader argued that he would draw enough independents and Republicans away to weaken President George W. Bush. The caucus urged Nader to give up his presidential run, fearing that vote splitting would hurt John Kerry, the Democratic Party's nominee. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) called the upcoming election "a life or death matter" for the Caucus members' constituents. Nader accused Congressman Mel Watt of twice uttered an "obscene racial epithet" towards him; it was alleged that Watt said: "You're just another arrogant white man - telling us what we can do - it's all about your ego - another f--king arrogant white man." Watt subsequently did not offer an apology.[1]
Ballot access
As of October 26, 2004, Nader was slated to appear on the ballot in 34 states and Washington, DC, and was off the ballot in eight states (California, Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Virginia).
The Nader campaign failed to gain a spot on a number of state ballots, and faced legal challenges to its efforts in a number of states. In some cases, state officials found large numbers of submitted voter petitions invalid. While Nader campaign officials blamed legal challenges by the Democratic Party for their difficulties in getting Nader's name on the ballot, the difficulties faced by petition-gatherers were also a significant factor - there were far fewer people in 2004 eager to sign petitions for Ralph Nader, and petition-gatherers complained that they often received verbal abuse from people they solicited. One of Nader's California organizers observed that "paid signature gatherers did not work for more than a week or two. They all quit. They said it was too abusive."[2]
On April 5, 2004, Nader failed in an attempt to get on the Oregon ballot. "Unwritten rules" disqualified over 700 valid voter signatures, all of which had already been verified by county elections officers, who themselves signed and dated every sheet with an affidavit of authenticity (often with a county seal as well). This subtraction left Nader 218 short of the 15,306 needed. He vowed to gather the necessary signatures in a petition drive. Secretary of State Bill Bradbury disqualified many of his signatures as fraudulent; the Marion County Circuit Court ruled that this action was unconstitutional as the criteria for Bradbury's disqualifications were based upon "unwritten rules" not found in electoral code, but the state Supreme Court ultimately reversed this ruling. Nader appealed this decision to the US Supreme Court, but a decision did not arrive before the 2004 election.
The following list, based on information from Nader's campaign website, summarizes whether Nader appeared on a state's ballot, and whether that status had been disputed as of late October 2004, by Nader or his opponents:
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Of the swing states, Nader was off the ballot in 4 (MO, OH, PA, VA), disputed off in 3 (AZ, OR, WI), disputed unknown in 1 (IA), disputed on in 8 (AR, CO, FL, ME, MI, NV, NH, WV), and on in 5 (LA, MN, NM, TN, WA).
In some states where Nader's name was not printed on the ballot, write-in votes for the Nader/Camejo ticket were still permitted and counted.
In Alabama and New York, a ballot line appeared in which running mate Peter Camejo was replaced with Jan D. Pierce, a Vice President of the Communications Workers of America and in 2000 was head of "Labor for Nader." Pierce had also been filed as his running mate in Ohio,[3][4] where they failed to get on the ballot. In Montana Camejo was replaced with Karen Sanchirico, an Ada County, Idaho Green Party activist and founder of Idaho Patriots.[5]