Nader off Florida Ballot

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Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday September 16, 2004 @06:33AM from the this-means-something dept.

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."

12 of 141 comments (clear)

WTF? by pi_rules · 2004-09-16 06:35 · Score: 4, Informative

This story is a week old. Last I heard Jeb declared the ruling invalid and Nader's on the ballot.
A shame by russeljns · 2004-09-16 06:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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1. Re:A shame by reedster · 2004-09-16 07:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-16 06:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
1. Re:Why do we /still/ have the Electoral College? by Randolpho · 2004-09-16 07:25 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  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.
  
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Currently before FL supreme court. by boy_asunder · 2004-09-16 06:47 · Score: 5, Informative

This is very old news. The case has had about five iterations since then.

From what I have read, the current status is that the Florida Supreme Court has halted the release of abstentee ballots pending a decision in the case that might come Saturday. So far, both a trial judge and an appellate court have found that the Reform party is not a legitimate state party, and so Nader can't get on the ballot. The Secretary of State has appealled both decisions.

And here's a Miami Herald story, that's, you know, actually from today 'n shit.
The Green Party candidate, on the other hand... by RobertB-DC · 2004-09-16 06:51 · Score: 4, Informative

Interesting that Nader was trying to get on the Florida ballot as the Reform Party's candidate. Hopefully, this will remind folks that Ralph Nader is not the Green Party candidate for President in 2004!

That honor belongs to David Cobb, who is working to build the Green Party from the ground up. Contrast with Nader, who wanted to use the party's (still limited) ballot access to prove a point.

And according to Cobb's site, the Green Party has a ballot line in Florida. Unlike Nader, though, Cobb cares who wins the election:

http://www.votecobb.org/news/camden
"Cobb said he is asking people to vote for him in states like New Jersey, where polls show Kerry is ahead of Bush by 10 percentage points. In states where the race is close, he said he will understand that some liberal voters would support Kerry instead of him."

Nader's time as a candidate is over. So long, and thanks for all the fi^W safety!

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Re:Old News by russeljns · 2004-09-16 06:53 · Score: 3, Informative

But now he's off for good.

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Re:Sad day by N3WBI3 · 2004-09-16 07:14 · Score: 3, Insightful

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..

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Nader's on, Nader's off, so what? by JohnnyX · 2004-09-16 07:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

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...
Re:Old News by Zeinfeld · 2004-09-16 15:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

This happened last week. Since then Florida's AG has launched an appeal which automatically gets Narer back on the ballot for the mailins due to be sent out by Saturday.
Last week was a preliminary injunction, this is the hearing. Nader is off and the Florida supreme court has issued an injunction preventing any more ballots being sent out without their permission.
The Bushies did try to do an end run by ignoring the first injunction and sending out as many ballots as they could, but only a few were actually mailed and those are likely to end up being cancelled. The net effect is likely to be damage to Bush since the four counties that sent out the invalid postal ballots are ones where the GOP controls the returning officer - i.e. republican areas.
This whole Nader issue is a GOP shell game. Nader does not have the support of 100,000 floridians that it takes to get on the ballot through petition. He is unlikely to poll that number nationwide. In fact he is unlikely to even qualify for the ballot in enough states to have a mathematical chance of winning.
The 'reform' party does not have a significant national membership, Nader has had four years to form a 'leftwing cretins who want to hand the election to Bush' party and has not done so.

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Re:Sad day by Doc+Ruby · 2004-09-17 04:38 · Score: 4, Interesting

OK, let's move on. Bush missed Florida state law's September 1, 2004 deadline to register to be on the ballot in Florida, so Floridians won't be voting for him, and their 27 electoral votes will go to Kerry, 10% of his victory minimum. OK?

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