Nader off Florida Ballot

Rory writes "This could be it for Ralph Nader. A Florida judge has issued a preliminary injunction, ruling the Reform Party is no longer a party, thereby knocking its candidate, Ralph Nader, off the Florida ballot. The devil is in the details, and Florida has too many electoral votes for this not to have serious impact on the national election, if this preliminary ruling holds up on appeal."

Comments

A shame

[russeljns]

If the Democratic Party doesn't want people to vote for Nader, it should give them a reason to vote for Kerry (as opposed to voting against Bush). They're really screwing Nader.

Not that I'm surprised. They're just trying to hold on to power using whatever legal means possible. Perfectly natural behavior.
Doesn't make it right though.

Re:A shame

[reedster]

Whats worse, Democrats wanting to keep Nader off the ballots to help Kerry or Republics lining up in force to get Nader on the ballot to hurt Kerry. I think they both need to step away from the issue here. I do believe Nader should do like the other candidates do and get signatures from his own registered voters like the Dems and Reps do. Does anybody really think there is enough registered Reform party members to get Nader on the ballot in any state. I sure don't, therefore he shouldn't be on the ballot at all which is definitely more in line with the dems thinking.

Why do we /still/ have the Electoral College?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a student of History, I understand why the Electoral College exists. What I don't understand is /why/ we're still using it.

I hail from one of the less populous Western states, and we haven't had a presiential candidate, or his running mate, set foot in the state for years. Seems like you just get the five states with the most electoral votes, and ignore the rest of the country.

Re:Why do we /still/ have the Electoral College?

[Randolpho]

Two political reasons, and one statistical reason:

1) because the Electoral College allows the *individual states*, not the popular vote, to elect the President. This actually *helps* keep California and New York from completely dominating, say, Wisconsin.

2) because the winner-take-all system in place favors a two-party system, which shifts political coalitions and compromise out of the government and into political parties, creating a more simple, stable government. This is at the expense of choices for voters, naturally.

3) because a close national vote like 2000 will never be considered valid. 2000 was statistically a tie (49.3% to 49.8% in favor of Gore -- about 500,000 votes out of 100 million). Most states and local governments have some 1% difference rule that mandates a recount for a close race. Imagine the debacle in Florida, but scaled nationwide. Yeah, we're talking total chaos. Now imagine a recount of the Electoral votes. 538 -- nice and easy. Although whether an individual vote should have been one way or the other might be called into question, you cannot question the final tally.

Now, I happen to think that number 2 is a bogus reason, but I agree with the reasoning behind 1 and 3. To that end, I think the Electoral College should be *reformed*, but not eliminated. I favor eliminating the possibility of winner-take-all, and setting up a system where each House vote is determined by popular vote within that district -- states still get to draw the district lines per census -- and the two senate votes are determined by state-wide popular vote, coupled with a strictly mathematical process (i.e. no Electors, no two-votes one not in home state, etc.). Possibly an auto-invalidation rule for close votes within a particular district could help, but I can see enough problems that I wouldn't push hard for it.

Such a system will help keep the little states from being stomped (a win in the district of a 3-vote state is worth 3 votes rather than one), while giving third parties a better chance of at least *affecting* the election by drawing electoral votes.

Re:Sad day

[N3WBI3]

Nader is a risk for Bush and Kerry. A lot of people are mad at Bush right now, and a lot of left-leaning people might also vote for Nader instead of Kerry as Nader is seen as more of a "Centrist".

Ok so how is this bad for Bush? Look the fact is it was the democrats in court pushing Nader off the ballot but if you want to think Bush is happy the man who handed him the election in 2000 is off the ballot you are letting your bias influence you judgement..

Nader's on, Nader's off, so what?

[JohnnyX]

As other's have mentioned, Nader was ordered off, then an elections administrator put him back on the absentee ballots, then the Florida Supreme Court ordered the elections administrator to not send them until it could rule.

In other, more pertinent, news, Michael Badnarik is on 49 ballots. 49, not the low 30s like Nader.

At the end of the day Nader doesn't matter because people have already watched him lose before. Cobb doesn't matter because he can't decide whether he's really a candidate or not ("Vote for me, unless you'd rather vote for Kerry, I mean, vote for me"). Peroutka doesn't matter because he's a religious nut.

Badnarik matters. He is the only candidate on 49 ballots who is against the war. He is the only candidate on 49 ballots who is against the Patriot Act. He is the only candidate on 49 ballots who is not wasting the American people's fucking time with silly accusations about who did or not do what during Vietnam or which memos are fake.

Your conscience called, it wants its vote back.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...let Badnarik debate...