Welcome to the fifth overdue installment of what has been my fortnightly Nader Ballot News Roundup. First off, I want to express my enormous appreciation to the folks at
StopNader.com who are now featuring my roundup on their homepage -- I always wondered how I'd get my 15 minutes! =) Please check them out and give a hand with their inspiring mission if at all possible.
The past month has marked the peak of the ballot access season, and that is accordingly reflected by the hugest update yet. With the fine states of Minnesota and Vermont the final states checking in last week, my goal is to post a weekly roundup as the process winds down into early October. Meanwhile, the plan is to have the most recent entry for each state kept up at StopNader for the duration.
So, moving right along!
I've made what should be the final modification to my criteria following St. Ralph's acceptance of the Reform Party nomination from Shawn O'Hara, outspoken defender of Samuel Bowers, former Imperial Wizard of the KKK in Mississippi. I will no longer distinguish between states where Nader is seeking ballot access via a qualified, rightwing Reform Party rather than via his Republican orchestrated petition drives. States are counted for Nader only if he's been formally certified, regardless of pending challenges marked by asterisks. Otherwise, states with Nader filings are indicated irrespective of the method or status. Nader is considered off the ballot if he has officially failed to meet petition requirements. Note that question marks appear wherever the current status of possible challenges remains unclear.
STATE-BY-STATE BALLOT STATUS |
Nader Off Ballot |
Arizona | Arkansas! | California | Georgia | Idaho! |
Illinois! | Indiana | Massachusetts | Missouri | New Mexico! |
N. Carolina! | Oklahoma | Oregon! | Texas! | Virginia? |
Nader On Ballot |
Alabama | Alaska | Colorado? | Connecticut | Delaware |
D.C. | Florida | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky |
Minnesota | Montana | Nebraska | Nevada | New Jersey |
North Dakota | Ohio# | S. Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee |
Utah | Washington? | West Virginia | Wisconsin# | Wyoming |
! frivolous Nader lawsuits pending |
# appropriate challenges pending |
? possible challenge/lawsuit pending |
As developments warrant, it's very possible some states will move from their current designation to the other.
With a staunchly GOP court's baseless rescue of Nader from his abject failure in Michigan and a contemptible intervention by Jeb Bush's minions in Florida, the well-deserved humiliation of St. Ralph failing to qualify for ballots totalling 269 electoral votes hangs in the balance of ongoing reviews in just a few states, most notably Ohio and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, assuming he doesn't manage to improperly maneuver onto any more ballots from which he's been duly disqualified, the following is the most Ralphie could presently hope for.
Current Nader Maximum |
Number of States: 35 |
Electoral Votes: 312 |
Popular Vote: 1.66% |
The maximum popular vote percentage is estimated by taking the surely remorseful 2.73% that voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 and reducing them by the number of votes received in states where he's thus far failed to qualify in 2004. The actual Nov 2 vote will almost surely be less.
So, without further ado, let's plunge right in to the state-by-state situation report breakdown!
REFORM PARTY STATES |
states with a potential Reform Party ballot line |
COLORADO: Echoing an increasingly familiar refrain, Denver District Judge John McMullen rightly criticized the underhanded shadiness of Ralphie's ballot filing but nonetheless declined a joint challenge entered by Centennial State Dems in conjunction with the Ballot Project. Though not previously a member of the all-but-defunct rightwing party as required by law for access to that line, Nader exploited the cover of his faux Reform Party 'convention' to file on Sept 2 - nearly two months late! Sketchier still, a shadowy quartet of local RP officers schemed "under the dark of night" to improperly change their nomination rules without giving public notice to even their own fellow party members. Signalling her own indifference to the letter and spirit of the law, Colorado's GOP Secretary of State went ahead and certified St. Ralph's illegitimate RP filing .. before outright joining his legal defense transparently spearheaded by Colorado Republican Party Treasurer Richard Westfall. It's unknown at this time whether challengers will pursue an appeal. (Status: ON ballot)
FLORIDA: The ultimate outcome of the Sunshine State's dizzying ballot roller coaster validated expectations that Jeb's reprehensible minions would swoop in to save the day for his brother's enabler. Much like a juvenile dilinquent returning to the scene of his crimes, St. Ralph filed one invalid signature on Aug 31 (his own) - far short of the 93,024 required of fringe party candidates nominated by telephone conference call. Two challenges were immediately filed, one by the Florida Democratic Party and another by a multipartisan group of concerned voters, correctly pointing out that the rightwing-loser RP is not a viable political party and that their so-called "convention" was but a transparent charade. With a glorious (albeit fleeting) stroke of justice, Circuit Judge Kevin Davey duly issued a preliminary injunction blocking the improper certification of Nader's profoundly inadequate filing. To the great dismay of Jeb's hyperpartisan lackeys who'd rushed to his side, the FL ballot was properly certified on Sept 10 without Nader's disqualified ballot line. St. Ralph ludicrously declared himself a victim of Jim Crow, evidently oblivious to the irony of his defunct rightwing fringe party chairman's advocacy on behalf of KKK legend Samuel Bowers. However, this interlude of legitimacy for the FL election was shattered when Secretary of State Glenda Hood proclaimed her contempt for the rule of law by maneuvering Ralphie back on to the ballot .. gleefully plunging the beleaguered Florida election into an "abysmal mess" on his behalf. With absentee ballot deadlines looming, a federal judge swiftly dismissed Nader's frivolous appeal and a state appellate court kicked that version directly up to the Supreme Court of Florida .. which quickly moved to suspend Judge Davey's biting reprimand of Jeb's underling and halted the GOP's evidently needless, but nonetheless corrupt, maneuvers to preempt the eventual ruling. With Bush 2000 recount lawyer Ken Sukhia fronting as torchbearer for Bush's shameless tool, a majority of the high court rightly critiqued the mockery of the system by Ralphie's rightwing Reform Party burlesque, but dropped the ball when confronted with the prospect of interpreting the legislature's infamously deficient Florida Election Code. (Status: ON ballot)
KANSAS: The Nader campaign didn't bother to gather the 5,000 signatures required of independents, but on Aug 31 certifying documents arrived from the national Reform Party, which is all Kansas requires. (Status: ON ballot)
MICHIGAN: Although his Republican collaborators lacked standing to intervene on behalf of their proxy, a GOP-stacked MI Court of Appeals disregarded the law, instead finding that the Michigan Republican Party had a "vested interest" in helping Nader help Bush get elected. Earlier, a federal judge properly rejected Nader's own frivolous lawsuit .. ruling that it's not the Secretary of State's job to mediate the little spat between MI's feuding Reform Party cliques. Of course, whatever integrity St. Ralph had left (none) was gleefully cast aside in his rush to embrace his Republican benefactors. With the MI Supreme Court even more GOP-biased than the Court of Appeals, the ballot battle in Michigan is over. (Status: ON ballot)
MISSISSIPPI: Although Attorney General Jim Hood and Secretary of State Eric Clark themselves cast doubt on the soundness of their own decision, on Sept 7 the Board of Election Commissioners certified Nader's filing to exploit the rightwing Reform Party's qualified ballot line in the Magnolia State. Having rejected a challenge by a rightly concerned citizen, they veritably invited court intervention but it's unclear at this time whether the certification will get justly appealed. (Status: ON ballot, for now)
MONTANA: Although the rightwing Reform Party is ballot-qualified, Ralphie will appear on the ballot as an Independent following the certification of 6,358 petition signatures. Karen Sanchirico will be his running mate in Big Sky Country (she's some random fringe party agitator from Idaho, or whatever), I'm guessing because Nader sycophant Peter Camejo was somehow in violation of MT election laws. (Status: ON ballot)
NEW YORK: An isolated report claims that Nader is stalking the ballot line of the New York Independence Party, which is not affiliated with the national Reform Party. On Aug 18 Ralphie filed to appear on the "Peace and Justice" line .. evidently a reference to the Peace and Justice St. Ralph hopes will be lost if his quest to elect George W. Bush proves successful .. and it's unclear whether this latest shady maneuver is simply redundant or meant to replace the still-pending P&J self-nomination. (Status: probably ON ballot)
SOUTH CAROLINA: A somewhat sketchy situation played out in the Palmetto State. There are two splinter groups descended from the Reform Party of Ross Perot. The American Reform Party abandoned the main party in 1997 when they realized what a whackjob Perot was, but then reaffirmed their own whackery by endorsing Nader in 2000. They seem to have come to their senses this time around and evidently rejected St. Ralph's overtures, as have people of sound mind everywhere. Anyhow, the other splinter group is the Independence Party, formerly known as the Reform Party, that had drifted away from the national party, but now appears to have collapsed into little more than a shell group once again calling itself the Reform Party, although it's still officially recognized as the Independence Party. In any case, after the pathetic failure of his fraudulent petition drive and some futile grovelling to other minor SC parties, Ralphie evidently filed under the dubious auspices of the latter RP faction, and SC's hyperpartisan GOP Sec. of State apparently certified on Sept 9. (Status: ON ballot)
JULY/AUG DEADLINES |
new activity in previously reported states |
ALASKA: Nader barely qualified his ridiculously misnamed Populist Party, with slightly more than the required 2,878 signatures verified out of 5,223 submitted. It'll be mildly interesting to see if Ralphie can scrounge up the 3% of the vote to keep his vanity party's ballot line in the next election, assuming anyone wants the dishonor. Don't bet on it. (Status: ON ballot)
ARIZONA: St. Ralph's latest frivolous lawsuit in the Grand Canyon State, claiming the right to ignore filing deadlines and to recruit unqualified out-of-state petitioners, has been rejected. The incredibly duplicitous and unprincipled Nader vanity campaign previously failed to qualify a petition drive funded by the ultra-conservative former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party Nathan Sproul, bundled with the vicious anti-immigrant initiative Protect Arizona Now by a reactionary GOP consulting firm subcontracter, and represented by former Republican Governor Fife Symington's attorney Lisa Hauser who's associated with numerous other rightwing causes in Arizona. Contrary to the earlier denials of involvement by the same Arno Political Consultants firm that has directed ballot-qualification efforts for GOP icons Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr, Bob Dole, Pete Wilson, and Bob Dornan and whose client list features a virtual Who's Who of the corporate cartels and anti-progressive groups Nader routinely claims to oppose (including U.S. English, the Tobacco Institute, the National Rifle Association, the California Timber Association, Mobil Oil, Occidental Petroleum, Phillip Morris, Wal-Mart, and numerous Republican Party committees), a recent campaign filing revealed St. Ralph's outreach to and coordination with the extreme right wing. (Status: OFF ballot)
ARKANSAS: An overdue challenge has been filed cataloguing what would be an astounding pattern of fraud, deceit, and forgery were it to involve any other candidate. More than 300 of the 1,234 certified signatures feature names absent from state voter registration lists, name people who will testify they never signed, were written in the same handwriting, or were 'signed' by rubber stamps! Moreover, the petition drive was conducted under the facade of two different parties - the Populist Party and the Better Life Party - further amplifying the treachery of the process. Not only that, but it's questionable how many Arkansas voters would've knowingly joined a Populist Party drive, since quite fittingly the last time before St. Ralph that a "Populist Party" candidate appeared on the state's ballot was David Duke in 1988, infamous Grand Wizard of the KKK in Louisiana. Either way, the legitimacy of the ballot has been affirmed by Nader's disqualification after a Pulaski County court hearing meticulously detailed Ralphie's typical inability to follow the law. (Status: OFF ballot)
CONNECTICUT: As if his residency wasn't misfortune enough, Ralphie barely managed to inflict himself onto his home-state ballot, with 7,618 validated signatures to meet a 7,500 requirement. Needless to mention, his GOP friends were energized, or as the gleeful Executive Director of the Connecticut Republican Party proclaimed: "That's the most exciting news I've heard..in days!" (Status: shamelessly ON ballot)
ILLINOIS: Ralphie's inadequacies were on full display last month in the Land of Lincoln as the IL Board of Elections disqualified his campaign upon finding only 20,182 valid signatures, far short of the required 25,000. The double whammy was complete a few days later when U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly rejected the Nader campaign's frivolous lawsuit, though apparently without admonishment for wasting the court's valuable time. An appeal was lodged, as if the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals had nothing better to do than listen to St. Ralph's whining.. Surely enough, on Sept 22 the federal appeals court rejected his self-important filing, pointedly noting that Ralphie could've filed suit when he declared his spoiler run in February if he really thought the rules were unconstitutional, and that he was hardly worth throwing the election into turmoil at this late date. (Status: OFF ballot)
IOWA: Although a strongly advised appeal was considered of the state election panel's unjustified certification of St. Ralph for the ballot, the challengers inexplicably declined to follow through. (Status: ON ballot)
MAINE: The admirable Democratic challenge to ensure that St. Ralph follow the rule of law when seeking to help Bush keep the presidency will shift to Kennebec County Superior Court after Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky's vexing judgment that Ralphie need not comply with legal guidelines so long as he claims he sorta tried. This followed a hearing officer's advice that, while the rest of us can get the smackdown for so much as jaywalking, close enough is good enough for St. Ralph's futile pursuit of the highest office in the land. For the time being, 4,128 questionable Nader signatures have been certified even after multiple irregularities were revealed during two days of hearings that left him clinging 128 names above the minimum required. StopNader.com played a key role in confronting Ralphie's legally-challenged petition drive, and former ME Speaker of the House Michael Saxl's tireless efforts to hold Nader and his cynical Republican confederates accountable deserve special mention. (Status: ON ballot)
MARYLAND: A state court swiftly rejected a frivolous lawsuit in which the perennial fringe party agitators running Ralphie's MD campaign challenged the proper invalidation of 542 unverifiable signatures - just five more than would be required to qualify St. Ralph's vanity Populist Party for the ballot. Soon after a Sept 20 hearing of Nader's appeal of his lower court rebuke, the MD Court of Appeals shamefully added the Old Line State to the growing list where following the law is optional for St. Ralph. (Status: ON ballot)
MASSACHUSETTS: Aside from some rather pathetic whining, there's no sign of a pointless challenge after Ralphie's spectacular failure in John Kerry's glorious home state .. submitting a mere 8,132 valid signatures against a 10,000 minimum requirement. (Status: OFF ballot)
MISSOURI: Despite threatening to waste valuable court resources with yet another of his frivolous lawsuits, Ralphie won't be wasting ballot space in the Show Me State after failing to file his promised challenge. Jane Arnold of StopNader.com said it best: "People in Missouri can concentrate on things that are important to the people of Missouri." (Status: OFF ballot)
NEVADA: Although partially victorious in establishing the fraudulence of Nader's Republican-funded petition drive in the Silver State, challengers were unable to persuade a state court district judge to take the full scale of "falsity, forgery, misconduct and deceit" into account. Even after likening the name-gatherers to "carnival workers" and properly disqualifying some 3,348 of 8,631 allegedly validated signatures, the overall decision still unjustifiably left the Nader campaign with slightly more than the 5,000 required. The Nevada Supreme Court on Sept 16 upheld the lower court's refusal to hold Nader accountable to the rule of law, regrettably shirking its own duty to protect the legitimacy of the ballot process. (Status: ON ballot, at this time)
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Admirably seeking to protect the integrity and legitimacy of the ballot process, Democrats filed a formal challenge, scheduled for a Sept 24 Ballot Law Commission review, chronicling the widespread fraud and deceit of the not-so-stealth Nader Republican ballot campaign in the Granite State. This followed an informal petition outlining the pattern of forgery and deception as a prelude to accessing the voter records needed for a complete review. Democrats attempted to contact all 1,784 submitted names in the Second District and were still contacting all 2,042 listed names in the First District, having already revealed widespread illegality. Subsequent invalidation of just 285 names in the Second District would disqualify Nader's profoundly suspect ballot effort, which would surprise no one else considering the typical lack of enthusiasm he inspires among NH voters. (Status: possibly ON ballot)
NORTH CAROLINA: I've neglected to previously cover Nader's frivolous lawsuit seeking to scam himself an unmerited ballot spot in the Tar Heel State. Although last month a court struck down the disparity between the 100,532 signatures required of unaffiliated contenders and the 58,842 required for political parties, Nader's pathetic effort had fallen dramatically short of even that lower threshold. Swooping in to hijack the case filed by some random malcontent not related to his campaign, St. Ralph argues that his hyper-inflated self-importance is of such magnitude that, due to the allegedly greater viability of his candidacy, he should be granted an unfair special exemption denied legitimate minor candidates. In any event, a federal judge this week ruled that Ralphie ineptly filed in the wrong court, and the State Board of Elections is already printing up and sending out ballots after his incompetent local minions didn't bother showing up for a Sept 3 hearing scheduled to consider a delay. (Status: OFF ballot)
OHIO: A somewhat meaningless technical certification has been granted after a preliminary review logged a paltry 6,464 'valid' signatures out of 14,473 submitted .. evidencing the stunningly high 90%+ fraudulence rate in many areas! The provisional ballot listing is required in the off-chance that St. Ralph ultimately qualifies in spite of the pending legal challenge and a formal protest scheduled for hearings after the printing deadline. The protests focus in great part on the criminality of two circulators in particular, as well as seven others engaged in massive fraud and mischief of St. Ralph's ballot campaign. Presuming that the imminent rulings disqualify the Nader Republican petition drive, his line will be duly stricken from the ballot before the election. A public hearing is scheduled for Sept 21 in order to confront "the most systematic and widespread fraud the state has ever seen" ... just standard operating procedure for the Ralphie Nader campaign. (Status: provisionally ON ballot)
PENNSYLVANIA: The simultaneous hearings by at least five judges in three different locations scheduled to deal with the massive, self-admitted fraud of St. Ralph's deadbeat ballot campaign were put on hold when a panel of three Commonwealth Court judges kicked Nader off the ballot. An appeal was swiftly lodged with the PA Supreme Court protesting Ralphie's disqualification under the eminently appropriate "sore loser" law that aptly prohibits said losers from running as independent spoilers after seeking nomination by political party in the same election cycle. A slightly hysterical Nader expressed delusional optimism and vowed to continue harrassing the fine Keystone State even after the Commonwealth Court further doomed his quest by refusing to stay the earlier decision. Now, an improper rescue by the Pennsylvania Supremes just takes Ralphie back to square one .. struggling to defend the illegality and inadequacy of his ballot drive during an ambitious schedule of hearings in Philadelphia, Doylestown, Pittsburgh, Erie, Greensburg and Harrisburg that will consider challenges to his petitions in 48 counties. (Status: OFF ballot)
TEXAS: On Sept 1, U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel properly rejected St. Ralph's failed attempt to force himself onto the Lone Star ballot. For once I agree with Nader toady Kevin Zeese that "it doesn't look like the judge understands the issues" .. having failed to admonish or penalize Ralphie for wasting the court's time and taxpayer money with his frivolous lawsuits. Therefore, an appeal is pending with the Fifth Circuit. (Status: OFF ballot)
UTAH: Sending a mild ripple of indifference across the nation, Ralphie qualified for Utah's ballot after managing to collect the 1,000 required signatures. For some silly reason, this provoked a bitter squabble within the local Green Party, which settled the matter by endorsing both Cobb and Nader while giving neither candidate its ballot line. Whatever. (Status: ON ballot)
VIRGINIA: A melodramatic two-week saga closed with a whimper as the quite miserable failure of Ralphie's incompetent petition drive justly disqualified him from the Old Dominion ballot. The duplicitous Nader Republican campaign overseen by his GOP campaign director managed only 7,342 verifiable signatures out of 12,923 submitted, well short of the required 10,000 minimum. Despite the intervention of VA's hyperpartisan Republican AG Jerry Kilgore on his behalf, St. Ralph still couldn't make it even after scamming an unfair exemption from longstanding guidelines that were good enough for everyone else but too good for him. Local Ralphnuts continue scrambling to invent a frivolous basis for appeal, but the Commonwealth's final Sept 18 deadline has now dutifully passed them by. (Status: OFF ballot)
WEST VIRGINIA: In spite of ample evidence of criminal misconduct by Nader's ultra-conservative political consulting firm subcontractors JSM Inc, a reckless Kanawha Circuit judge declared that the public's interest in the fair and honest conduct of elections does not outweigh Ralphie's interest in helping Bush win the election. Soon afterward, the WV Supreme Court indicated a similarly misguided set of priorities by refusing to block the lower court's miscarriage of justice, thereby obstructing the Attorney General's valiant effort to hold St. Ralph accountable for the illegality of his ballot campaign. (STATUS: ON ballot)
AUG/SEPT DEADLINES |
states with deadlines after Aug 21 |
ALABAMA: After first attempting to coordinate an illegal joint petition with two other fringe parties, Nader evidently qualified for the Yellowhammer ballot separately by managing to submit 7,214 signatures by the Sept 7 filing deadline .. not a huge surprise considering his curiously outsized fundraising in this intensely red GOP state. (Status: ON ballot)
HAWAII: An assortment of dishonest Ralphnuts met the Sept 3 petition filing deadline, with a minimum 3,711 verified signatures required by the Aloha State. Nader's webpage alleges that about 5,700 were submitted, but their propaganda releases have consistently overstated the figures in other states. A remarkably unhelpful staffer contacted at the HI Office of Elections refused to shed any light on the matter, except to grudgingly admit that a decision might be expected around Sept 20. (Status: likely ON ballot)
IDAHO: Greeted by an unusual setback from a state with a very heavy concentration of his Republican supporters, Ralphie won't appear on Idaho's ballot after collecting only 4,388 valid signatures, with a minimum 5,016 required. His inept campaign filed a frivolous lawsuit alleging that some mysterious, unspecified "clerical error" led to the disqualification of 897 invalidated signatures. (Status: OFF ballot)
KENTUCKY: With about 10 minutes to spare, Nader's campaign delivered 10,315 unverified signatures on Sept 7, well beyond the 5,000 minimum required to qualify. State law ridiculously permits only 24 hours for a mere cursory glance before certification, nowhere near providing for the kind of thorough review needed to examine the rampant fraud routinely discovered in St. Ralph's petitions. (Status: ON ballot)
LOUISIANA: Even Ralphie's senseless vanity campaign had no problem scrounging up LA's minimalistic $500 filing fee requirement, and will be listed as The Better Life Party nominee .. evidently a reference to The Better Life for America that St. Ralph wants to spoil by throwing the election to George Bush. I wonder if Ralph "Imalosieur" Nader will take advantage of the unique nickname option that often gives the Bayou State ballot such a colorful Cajun flair. (Status: ON ballot)
MINNESOTA: Taking advantage of a virtually pointless 2,000 eligible voter signature requirement, the virtually pointless Nader campaign filed 4,781 signatures before the Sept 14 deadline. Perhaps mindful of how election officials and the courts have enabled Ralphie's illegal antics in so many other states, the DFL instead chose to fittingly ignore his ego trip, thereby making certification little more than a formality. (Status: ON ballot)
NEBRASKA: Few Cornhuskers seemed to notice when Nader turned in 3,922 signatures on Sept 1 and met the 2,500 minimum verified for certification by Sept 10, even fewer seemed to care. (Status: ON ballot)
NEW MEXICO: By contrast to several other states where the judiciary has refused to exercise proper oversight, if not outright obstructed executive efforts to protect the integrity of the ballot process, District Judge Wendy York correctly ruled that the GOP-allied, rightwing Reform Party nominee is obviously not unaffiliated with a political party and therefore cannot qualify as the independent he falsely claims to be. The blatantly Republican petition drive orchestrated in large part by Roswell Republican Senator Rod Adair, and coordinated by St. Ralph's notorious ultra-conservative political consulting firm subcontractors JSM Inc, had submitted a typically fraud-inflated 31,000 signatures to meet a 14,527 registered voter requirement. Ballot printing has now duly resumed without Nader's illegitimate listing after the invalid certification of his unverified filing prompted an urgent legal challenge to require that Ralphie abide by the law. Nader's vanity campaign will file its frivolous appeal with the NM Supreme Court on Monday, even as his furious GOP supporter demanded Judge York's resignation for daring to uphold the legitimacy of the ballot process in the Land of Enchantment. With an amusing turn of events, Ralphie found himself back on the ballot just long enough to get kicked off again, after the intimidation has succeeded in leading Judge York to rescind the prior order and recuse herself, granting Judge Theresa Baca the honor of reiterating the initial, obvious outcome. (Status: OFF ballot, again)
NORTH DAKOTA: Calling on ND voters to "sort out the contradiction" not even remotely as dishonest and unprincipled as his own motley far-right collection of ultra-conservatives who fundraise and petition on behalf of Bush's useless idiot, St. Ralph submitted 6,305 signatures by Sept 3, exceeding the 4,000 statutory minimum for certification. (Status: ON ballot)
OREGON: The state Supreme Court unanimously kicked Ralphie back off the ballot after Attorney General Hardy Myers justly urged an expedited reversal of the rogue lower court decision prohibiting Secretary of State Bill Bradbury from properly enforcing the law. Although Nader's name will appear on several thousand ballots already sent overseas, the Elections Director halted printing of almost two million regular ballots until the high court acted on the emergency request. Oregonians have St. Ralph's ego trip to thank for this pointless disruption after Marion County Circuit Judge Paul Lipscomb eviscerated the state's ability to guard against petition fraud by absurdly ruling that mere initials (rather than full signatures) were legally adequate for verification purposes. These 718 invalid entries briefly nudged Ralphie exactly 500 names above the 15,306 required for ballot placement, surely a delightful turn of events for the Nader-publicans that had erupted with fury at the proper rejection of their intensely fraudulent petition drive. The justified rejection had followed after Bush activists and the ultra-conservative Citizens for a Sound Economy kicked their "systemic fraud" into high gear after Nader's pathetic back-to-back convention failures left him licking at the boots of key Republican groups to make the ballot in what is perhaps the 'Greenest' state in the nation. All that's left now is for the U.S. Supreme Court to put an exclamation mark on Ralphie's miserable downfall by promptly ignoring his frivolous appeal. (Status: OFF ballot)
RHODE ISLAND: There hasn't been any media coverage of Nader's scheming in Rhode Island, probably because no one really cares, but his campaign is claiming about 1,400 'verified' signatures, which would put him over the 1,000 minimum required. Confirmation will be posted if and when someone bothers making that available. (Status: likely ON ballot)
VERMONT: The Ralphnuts claim to have qualified with 1,278 petition signatures submitted Sept 17 to meet a 1,000 verified minimum required. Earlier, the renegade Vermont Green Party decided by one vote to sever its relationship with the national Green organization, instead endorsing Ralphie, who ingratefully declined their disloyal maneuver for fear of proper legal challenge. (Status: probably ON ballot)
WASHINGTON: Last week two challenges were duly filed outlining how St. Ralph's "ploy to re-elect George Bush" couldn't even meet the very basic, minimal standards of the Evergreen State's super-easy ballot access rules. Although Ralphnuts played fast and loose with the guidelines in the course of collecting 1,983 signatures at nine nominating conventions held from June 26 through Aug 28, a Superior Court judge ruled that Ralphie need not be held accountable for failing to comply with state law. There's no word on whether the decision will get properly appealed. (Status: ON ballot)
WISCONSIN: The stealthy uprising of Nader Republicans that galvanized after St. Ralph's pathetic convention failures in Oregon submitted about 3,995 signatures on Sept 7 to meet a paltry 2,000 signature requirement. Rightly concerned Democrats were forced to renege on plans to let Ralphie slide when obvious irregularities in his nominating effort demanded that someone intervene to protect the legitimacy of the ballot process. A deeply split Election Board chose to ignore these multiple disqualifying factors with a technical parsing of the relevant statutes and therefore greenlight the certification of 3,680 signatures. Nader would appear on the ballot as the Better Life Party nominee, which (in a rare glimmer of honesty) his own local campaign coordinator revealed is just a silly slogan obviously meant to deceive stupid people into voting for Ralph to help Bush win the election. Badger State Dems have expeditiously filed a strongly-advised court challenge to the Board's quasi-legal decision. (Status: ON ballot)
WYOMING: Ralphie will get listed on the ballot as an independent alongside the far more principled Michael Peroutka after submitting more than 6,500 signatures by the Aug 23 filing deadline. WY elections officials stop counting once the 3,643 minimum gets verified, and that's all that matters. (Status: ON ballot)