Nader loses fight over Green Party ballot label
By The Associated Press
01.31.02
CINCINNATI — Ohio had authority to list the name of presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the November 2000 ballot without his Green Party affiliation, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.
Ohio officials said the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling upholds the state's position that it has authority to impose reasonable requirements for ballot listings to ensure orderly, fair elections.
The Green Party and Nader had argued that keeping the party's designation off the ballot violated their constitutional rights of free speech, free association and equal protection of law.
They also said the state's refusal denied voters the opportunity to be informed which lesser-known candidates were running with third-party endorsements, such as the Green Party. The state's position allows Republicans and Democrats to keep voters in the dark about third-party challengers, said Terry Lodge, lawyer for the Green Party and Nader.
Appeals judges Richard Suhrheinrich, Alice Batchelder and Eugene Siler Jr. ruled unanimously yesterday, just a day after receiving the case.
Nader and the Green Party will appeal, Lodge said.
The appeals judges reversed a lower court's October 2000 ruling in favor of Nader and the party. U.S. District Judge John Holschuh of Columbus ruled then that they had the right to have Nader's name listed with the party affiliation.
But the appeals court blocked Holschuh's ruling later that month, saying there wasn't enough time left to uniformly reprint and distribute election ballots statewide. Nader ended up on the ballot without any party affiliation.
The Green Party said that it was continuing to pursue the case because it intends to have its party-affiliated candidates on Ohio ballots in future elections.
Attorneys for Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, the state's elections officer, said the General Assembly has reasonable requirements for ballot party listing. Ohio requires a party or candidate to obtain petition signatures equal to 1% of the number of people who voted in the state's last election for governor.
Nader and Green Party officials failed to meet that requirement for the 2000 election, Blackwell said. Backers of Nader and running mate Winona LaDuke collected only enough signatures to put them on the ballot as independents, he said.
State attorneys said Holschuh's decision violated prior rulings by a federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court that Ohio and other states may impose minimum, reasonable requirements for ballot listings as a party candidate. States say that helps them to ensure orderly elections and to determine if a third party legitimately has some public support.
Libertarian congressional candidate James Schrader won a favorable ruling against Ohio in 1999 from a federal magistrate, in a case similar to Nader's complaint. But the appeals court later reversed that ruling and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The appeals judges said yesterday that the Schrader decision required a similar outcome in the Nader case.