In Madison County, Ohio, elections officials used a marking pen on all ballots to blacken out the Libertarian and Constitution Party candidates for president, who had qualified for the ballot in Ohio and whose names had been printed on all state ballots. When voters asked why, it became apparent that the county elections office had taken the order to blacken out Nader’s name, as a blanket order to blacken out the names of all the minor party presidential candidates, leaving only Kerry and Bush.

Below is the order of presidential candidates on the ballot in each state. States not named above either rotate names, or let each county choose their own ballot order. The states that let each county choose their own order are Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa and New Jersey. However, the law in these four states mandates that the nominees of the qualified parties be listed first, and in those four states, only the Democratic and Republican Parties are qualified.

The states that rotate names are Alaska, California, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and Wyoming. The rotation states treat all candidates equally, for ballot order.

Abbreviations: K=Kerry; Bu=Bush; N=Nader; Ba=Badnarik; P=Peroutka; Co=Cobb; Br=Brown; Va=Van Auken; Ca=Calero; Am=Amondsen; Pa=Parker; Do=Dodge; Ha=Harris; An=Andress

The ballot access lawsuit filed by Ralph Nader and Michael Peroutka should have heard on October 29 (Friday). However, on Thursday, the judge recused herself. The case was assigned to another judge, and is reset for Monday, Nov. 1. It seems impossible that any injuctive relief will be forthcoming, due to the timing, even though the case is very strong. Nader and Peroutka have evidence that they do have enough valid signatures.