I’ve been looking into the signature drive to put Ralph Nader on the ballot as a presidential candidate in Pennsylvania in 2004. The State Supreme Court recently upheld a decision to force the Nader campaign to pay over $80,000 for the costs of processing his unsuccesful attempt. The thread title is an oft-quoted part of the court opinion denying Mr Nader his spot. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to turn up a full copy of the opinion itself but was intruiged by the dissent a PDF of which can be found HERE. A typical story can be found HERE which contains the following exerpts from the opinion:
Reading over the dissent I have come to believe this to be irresponsible hyperbole. I’d quote the significant parts except that I downloaded a newer version of the Acrobat Reader and I can’t get the damned thing to copy the text I highlight. But the dissent overall is based on the point that there is some disagreement over the definition of “qualified elector”. One must be one to sign the petition but the dissenting justice argues that a person does not have to actually be registered to vote but merely meet the qualifications necessary to have the right to vote. If this position is accepted then another 8,967 signatures would be valid which would have put Nader on the ballot since 18,818 signatures of the required 25,697 signatures were accepted ( out of the 51,273 submitted ).
Also check out the note at the bottom of page 14 where the dissenting justice specifically challenges the assertion of widespread systematic fraud noting that only 687 signatures were determined to be forged and pointing out that no evidence is cited that the Greens were aware of the fraud when they turned in the signatures and that when it became apparent that certain petitions were tainted they voluntarily withdrew them.
Questions for debate:
Should Nader have been placed on the ballot?
Should Commonwealth Court President Judge James Gardner Colins have issued such a provocative opinion?
Here is the [444 page PDF] Commonwealth Court opinion. If you read the consolidated opinion of President Judge Colins (only the first 15 pages), you’ll see what was involved. 11 of the judges of the court spent three weeks of often 16 hour days going through a detailed review of the more than 50,000 nomination signatures and comparing them to voter registration records.
The Nader campaign had hired ballot solicitors and paid them per signature they collected. The court found that more than half of the signatures were invalid for various reasons.
Judge Colins comment (on pages 13-14) was qualified by his statement that he was the longest serving judge in the Commonwealth Court’s history and thus has reviewed more nomination provisons than any other judge in the court’s history. He pointed out that it was the conduct of the candidates and their representatives that shocked the conscience of the court. Earlier in his opinion he pointed out details of how the candidates were obstructionist and ignored prior orders of the court.
If you read his whole opinion, it is neutral and balanced. His conclusion is strong, but I don’t think it was hyperbole. When judges are faced with outrageous conduct, they should very much call it out.
Thanks for digging that decision up. I haven’t read through the whole thing yet but based on the first 15 pages I can’t agree that it was neutral and balanced.
Certainly there seems ample room for criticizing Nader’s lawyers for arguing over names the campaign knew they had blacked out themselves but Judge Colins gives them a pass and specifically blames the Nader campaign. Where exactly are the “thousands of names created at random”? The decision clearly states that exactly 687 signatures were found to be forged.
Further, if we agree with the dissenting opinion that signatures should be accepted from people who were qualified to vote and disregard actual voter registration then another 15,387 signatures would be valid. That’s well over the additional 6,897 needed to put Nader on the ballot. The decision leaves the mistaken impression that Nader tried to cheat his way onto the ballot whereas it was only a controvertial decision which removed the signatures of actual people that forced the ballot drive to fail.
And that ignores the other categories of signatures of Pennsylvanians removed for technical reasons, the largest group being the 7,506 names stricken because someone other than the signee filled in the accompanying information. In short, the vast majority of invalidated signatures- the “thousands of names”- represented real people and only a relative handful represented forgeries. What should shock the conscience of the court is that it would go along with such absurd and irresponsible rhetoric.
Nor am I inclined to place much credence on Judge Colins’ experience of having has reviewed more nomination provisons than any other judge in the court’s history. In Penna a Democrat or Republican can get on the primary ballot with a mere 2,000 signatures. Reviewing any number of disputes of this type cannot compare to the unprecedented Nader case. The number of signatures third party candidates must garner is determined by a percentage of ballots cast in the most recent election which naturally continues to go up as the population grows. This is the largest such case in Pennsylvanian history and the judge shouldn’t leave the impression that he has experienced many such cases. No one has ever attempted a line by line signature challenge of this magnitude.
Given the hurdles placed in front of the Nader campaign it is hard to fault them for attempting to garner as many signatures as possible. The opinion notes that they reviewed the petitions and removed some fraudulent signatures ( via the “black lines” ) before submitting them. They voluntarily removed even more during the challenge procedure. And yet they are accused of not only deliberately trying to cheat but as being the biggest con artists in Pennsylvania judicial history? Bullshit.