Nader denied in three state ballots

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a last-ditch bid to put Ralph Nader on Oregon's election ballot.

Nader supporters had asked the court last week to block Oregon from printing ballots without his name. The court declined, although Justice Stephen Breyer noted he supported the stay.

The court's action was good news for supporters of presidential candidate John Kerry, who feared Nader would draw votes from the Democrat. His campaign had argued that the petition rules were unclear.

Last week, the Oregon Supreme Court sided with state election officials who found that several flawed petitions left Nader short of the 15,306 signatures needed to put him on the Nov. 2 ballot.

The independent presidential received more bad news from two states Tuesday. In Ohio, the secretary of state ruled Nader could not be on the ballot because thousands of the petition signatures were deemed invalid. In Wisconsin, a judge kicked Nader off that state's ballot, prompting an immediate appeal by Nader to the state Supreme Court.

Nader fared better in New Mexico, where the state Supreme Court ordered his name placed on the ballot, and in Maine, where a state judge ruled he could remain on the ballot there.

Nader is on the presidential ballot in more than 30 states and is suing for ballot access in several others.

Four years ago during election 2000, Nader received 5 percent of the vote in Oregon and 3 percent of the vote in Ohio as the Green Party nominee. This year, he has had the support of fewer than 2 percent of voters from those states in recent polls.

Oregon state residents vote by mail, and counties already have started printing 1.9 million ballots.

Mary Williams, Oregon's solicitor general, said Nader can still get write-in votes. "Oregon's election process will be severely disrupted if a stay is ordered," she wrote in papers filed with the court last weekend.

The U.S. Supreme Court's action is not expected to affect his other challenges.

It was the second time this month the court has turned down an election request. Two weeks ago, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist refused to let a Wisconsin anti-abortion group run political ads that criticize Democrats. The group, Wisconsin Right to Life, was trying to get around a campaign finance law's restrictions on campaign season political commercials.