Nader Keeps Pennsylvania Fight Going

Ralph Nader asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to place him on the general election ballot in Pennsylvania, a battleground state expected to be critical in the outcome of the Nov. 2 presidential election.

In a sign the high court planned to move swiftly, Justice David H. Souter immediately requested that Pennsylvania officials file a response to Nader’s emergency request by 2:30 p.m. today.

Nader’s late-evening filing asks the Supreme Court to review Pennsylvania’s decision to remove him because of legal problems with his nomination papers that left him thousands of signatures short of the number required.

He argued that Pennsylvania courts improperly excluded signatures from more than 15,000 Pennsylvania residents who are not registered to vote, saying such a requirement is a violation of 1st Amendment rights of expression and association.

“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision, if not stayed and reversed, has the effect of disenfranchising thousands of Pennsylvania voters by denying the access of presidential candidates to the ballot,” the filing states.

On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the finding of flawed signatures on voter petition sheets, which a lower court called “rife with forgeries.”

The lower court determined that fewer than 19,000 of the more than 51,000 signatures submitted were valid; Nader needs at least 25,697 to be listed on the ballot.

Nader’s filing asks the Supreme Court to put him on the ballot while it considers whether to hear an appeal of the Pennsylvania ruling.

Democrats wanted to keep Nader off the Pennsylvania ballot because they feared he could pull votes away from Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry and give President Bush the advantage in their closely fought race for the state’s 21 electoral votes, one of the nation’s largest prizes.

In 2000, Democrat Al Gore carried Pennsylvania.