Blackwell says Nader off Ohio ballot
JOHN McCARTHY
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Independent candidate Ralph Nader won't appear on Ohio's presidential ballot because forged signatures on petition forms and on petitions circulated by non-Ohioans left him short of the 5,000 required to qualify, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell ruled Tuesday.
Nader's campaign promised a fight to get back on the ballot.
Democrats, who blame Nader's presence on the ballot in Florida in 2000 for costing Al Gore the election, said they were happy with Blackwell's ruling. Nader drew about 2.5 percent of the 2000 vote in Ohio, where George W. Bush beat Gore by 3.6 percentage points.
Blackwell, a Republican, said Nader's backers wound up with 3,708 valid signatures.
They had turned in nearly 15,000 signatures, but just 6,464 were declared valid after review by local elections boards. An additional 2,756 were invalidated following testimony at a hearing last week at Blackwell's office.
Elections counsel Gretchen Quinn, who heard the case for Blackwell's office, has recommended that Blackwell further investigate the people accused of turning in fraudulent petitions. Falsifying petitions is a felony punishable by 18 months in prison. No charges have been filed.
Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said no decision had been made on whether to continue the investigation.
Democrats nationwide have challenged Nader's ballot petitions, fearing his candidacy will siphon votes from John Kerry. The consumer advocate is in litigation in seven of the 37 states where he's on the ballot. The campaign is suing for ballot access in seven other states.
Challenges in West Virginia, where Nader made the ballot, and New Mexico, where he didn't, involved the same petition signature collection company being questioned in Ohio, JSM Inc. of Florida. Messages were left Tuesday at a company telephone listing in Clearwater, Fla., under that name.
Blackwell ordered local boards to remove Nader's name from the Nov. 2 ballot or ensure that his name is covered.
Nader's campaign will try to get back on the ballot by taking the case to the Ohio Supreme Court, spokesman Kevin Zeese said. He said of the 9,000 signatures local elections boards tossed out, the campaign can find at least 1,300 that are valid.
"This is only round one," Zeese said.
Democrats said the ruling was fair and that Nader's petitioners were out of bounds.
"This proves that people who want to be on the Ohio ballot have to follow the rules that every Democrat and Republican candidate must play by," said Dan Trevas, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party. "He did not deserve to be a candidate."
Jason Mauk, spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party, said the party was not concerned with the ruling.
"He's not our candidate and we weren't working to get him on the ballot, so we're indifferent to the secretary's decision. I'm sure this is one of the many legal maneuvers the Democrats will employ to try to win this election," Mauk said.
Attorneys for the Nader campaign agreed last week to toss nearly 400 signatures after four members of a Dayton family said their cousin from California collected them, then told them to sign as the petition circulators. He was a JSM employee.
But they fought to keep other signatures after Democrat attorneys presented sworn statements and airline and hotel records to argue that the company's collectors registered to vote at fraudulent Ohio addresses or forced in-state collectors to sign off on their petitions.
Andrew Clubok, representing the citizens trying to get Nader off the ballot, said two circulators registered to vote at Ohio addresses where they didn't live for the Nader petitions. But while circulating petitions to put a constitutional ban on gay marriages on the Ohio ballot, they listed California and Illinois addresses. Petition circulators for ballot initiatives don't need to be registered Ohio voters.
Quinn said the largest number of signatures invalidated - 1,956 - were collected by people who were not Ohio residents or registered to vote in the state.
"I think the secretary of state really did a service to Ohio by putting the integrity of the election process above politics," Clubok said Tuesday. "Fraud was so pervasive and grotesque it really would have undermined the whole process."
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