Slashdot Mirror
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."
This story is a week old. Last I heard Jeb declared the ruling invalid and Nader's on the ballot.
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.
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.
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!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
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...
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.
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?
--
make install -not war