Three constitutional ballot access lawsuits filed by Ralph Nader in 2004 are still pending, in addition to his lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee for conspiring to keep him off as many ballots in 2004 as possible.
Nader’s Hawaii case will have a hearing in U.S. District Court on January 28, 2008. It challenges the practice of requiring an independent presidential candidate to obtain six times as many signatures as an entire new political party. It also challenges a lack of due process when Hawaii checks signatures on petitions.
His Ohio case is pending in the 6th circuit. It is Nader v Blackwell, and argues that past Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell should be held personally liable for permitting initiative petitions to be circulated by any adult, yet at the same time requiring independent candidate petitions to be circulated only by people who had been registered voters in an Ohio precinct for the previous 30 days. At the time, the law had identical requirements for initiative circulators and independent candidate circulators, yet Blackwell relaxed the law for initiatives, and not for Nader. It was obvious at the time that the law was unconstitutional, since in 1999 the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that states cannot force circulators to be registered voters.
Nader’s case against Arizona is pending in the 9th circuit. The oral argument will be in March, 2008, at the earliest. It challenges the early June independent presidential petition deadline (the 2nd earliest in the nation, after Texas’ deadline). It also challenges Arizona’s law that only in-state residents can circulate for an independent presidential candidate.
The fact that these case have not been heard shows that the courts do not care about the issue. They will not even be decided in time to have an effect on the ’08 elections most likely.
An absolute disgrace this is taking so long – but as long as justice is served, it will have been worth it. The 2 party stranglehold pisses me off.
so much for a fast resolution in a ballot case.
It accomplishes nothing to put the rights of American citizens before courts as corrupt as these. lndependent voters should just start opposing party candidates as write-in candidates in states where they cannot get on the ballot. Where parties are really threatening elections in the United States is in voter registration, which they are presently trying to legislate as an exclusive party privelege. In April of 2005 Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano signed into law a Senate bill which removed the option to register independent from the Arizona voter registration form having the following effect on independent voter registration in the state.
2000-2002 107,715
2002-2004 165,771
2004-2006 26,483
The federal judges in this district have consistently ruled against independent voters in any case brought before them. If the courts are saying that political parties have an exclusive right to participate in government, then they have set them up as royalty, which the Constitution does not give them right to do. The Arizona Constitution requires “free and open” elections. Party interpretation of words like these in law is that they denote an exclusive right for political parties to participate in government.
>lndependent voters should just start opposing party candidates as write-in candidates in states where they cannot get on the ballot.<
This does not always work. In the 2004 election, Ohioans who wrote in Nader’s name had their votes invalidated. Think about this. We have two parties kowtowing to the same set of money interests; and, unless you voted for the candidates that these two parties approved of, your vote would be invalidated.
This is hardly the democracy that Jefferson envisioned.