VoteSwap 2004

Nader won't be on Indiana ballot

Nader won't be on Indiana ballot

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader won't be on Indiana's ballot in November.

"I'm extremely disgusted," said Dallas Stoner, Nader's Indiana coordinator.

He blames Indiana's ballot access laws -- among the toughest in the country -- for setting a difficult standard to reach. Nader supporters, Stoner said, haven't collected even half of the 29,552 petition signatures they needed to have by noon today for Nader to be on the ballot.

GOP campaigning in Oregon for Nader

Daily Kos reports that two conservative groups have been phoning people around Oregon this week, urging them to attend Ralph Nader's convention Saturday in hopes of putting Nader's name on Oregon's presidential ballot.

The groups make no bones about their goal -- to draw votes away from Democrat John Kerry and help President Bush win this battleground state in November.

"We disagree with Ralph Nader's politics, but we'd love to see him make the ballot," said Russ Walker of Citizens for a Sound Economy, a group best known for its opposition to tax increases.

The Oregon Family Council also has been working the phones to boost attendance at Nader's event -- with the idea that it could help Bush this fall.

"We aren't bashful about doing it," said Mike White, the group's director. "We are a conservative, pro-family organization, and Bush is our guy on virtually every issue."

Conservatives Try to Get Nader on Ballot

Conservatives Try to Get Nader on Ballot

By BRAD CAIN, Associated Press Writer

SALEM, Ore. - Two conservative groups have been phoning people around Oregon this week, urging them to attend Ralph Nader convention Saturday in hopes of putting Nader's name on Oregon's presidential ballot.

The groups make no bones about their goal — to draw votes away from Democrat John Kerry and help President Bush win this battleground state in November.

"We disagree with Ralph Nader's politics, but we'd love to see him make the ballot," said Russ Walker of Citizens for a Sound Economy, a group best known for its opposition to tax increases.

The Oregon Family Council also has been working the phones to boost attendance at Nader's event — with the idea that it could help Bush this fall.

"We aren't bashful about doing it," said Mike White, the group's director. "We are a conservative, pro-family organization, and Bush is our guy on virtually every issue."

Even if it comes from an unusual source, Nader can probably use the help, given that this will be his second attempt to win a spot on Oregon's ballot.

In April, Nader held an evening rally in Portland that was intended to attract 1,000 people needed to sign petitions to put him on the ballot. Only 741 showed up.

Nader placed some of the blame on supporters tuning in the NCAA (news - web sites) basketball championship game, which occurred the same night, rather than attend the rally.

The 70-year-old consumer activist plans to travel to Portland for the second convention, which will be held at a local high school.

The move by the Republican-leaning groups to boost attendance at Nader's mini-convention is legal.

State law says that for Nader to qualify for the ballot as independent candidate, he need only draw 1,000 registered votes — regardless of their party affiliation — together in one place to sign petitions for him.

The head of Nader's Oregon campaign, Greg Kafoury, said he's had no contact with the two conservative groups that have been calling people this week. But he said he's not bothered by their actions, either.

If Nader qualifies for Oregon's ballot, polls suggest that he could be a factor in whether Kerry or Bush wins the seven electoral votes of this swing state in November.

Greens Give Nader Thumbs Down

theBakersfieldchannel.com - Politics - Greens Give Nader Thumbs Down

The Green Party nominated Texas attorney David Cobb as its candidate for president Saturday, rejecting Ralph Nader's efforts to secure the party's formal endorsement and likely access to the ballot in key states like Wisconsin and California.

Nader, the party's candidate in 1996 and 2000, had told Green officials months ago he would not accept the party's nomination for president, preferring to build a coalition of third-party groups and independents rather than running under one banner.

Still, he openly courted their formal endorsement as a means to get on the ballot in the 22 states and Washington, D.C., where the party has a ballot line.

But 408 delegates voted for Cobb on the second ballot to give him the nomination.

In Oregon, meanwhile, Nader made another bid Saturday to get 1,000 people together at a Portland high school to sign a petition to get him on the November ballot as an independent. A similar attempt in April drew 751 people.

State Elections Director John Lindback said Nader supporters turned in 950 petition sheets, most of them with a single signature, although some of the sheets contained several signatures.

It was not clear how many total signatures there were, but Lindback said, "Their margin is extremely thin." He said it would take a few days for local election officials to tally the signatures and verify whether they were from registered voters.

"It doesn't matter, we'll get on the ballot," Nader said Saturday night, noting that under Oregon law he also can qualify by mounting a more traditional signature gathering drive later this summer.

Nader's supporters at the Green Party convention argued that an endorsement for him as the only real option for Greens if they hoped to maintain their national profile and play a role in the presidential race.

But Cobb has touted himself as a homegrown Green who would work to build the party from the ground up, while Nader has maintained he is not a member of the party and does not plan to join.

Cobb went out of his way to praise Nader in accepting the nomination, but said later the vote was a sign the Green Party "has gotten out from under the shadow of a man who has probably cast a larger shadow than any other living American."

The party's endorsement would not have guaranteed Nader the Green Party's ballot lines. Rather, it would have given state chapter officials the option of presenting Nader as the candidate of their choice for president to state election officials. Still, that prospect was much less daunting than other means for getting on the ballot.

In California, for example, Nader will have to gather more than 150,000 signatures to get on the ballot as an independent.

Nader tapped longtime Green activist Peter Camejo as his running mate this week, a step his supporters hoped would bolster his chances of winning the party's endorsement.

Many Democrats still blame Nader for President Bush's victory four years ago and fear he could still siphon off enough votes to hand the Republican a second term.

Nader recently was polling about 6 percent nationally, according to an Associated Press poll conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said the consumer activist knew he faced an uphill battle for the party's endorsement by electing in December not to participate in the primary process and not sending representatives to the party convention until this week.

He said Nader would now turn his attention to his drive to get on the ballot by other means in states where Greens have access and said Greens will not know until Election Day whether their decision to back someone else will pay off.

Nader already has the backing of the Reform Party, which has ballot access in seven states, but he has yet to be placed on any state ballots.

Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Is Vote-Swapping Legal?

We are back and getting ready for the 2004 elections. Make sure to check back as we get our campaign off the ground! You can also check out this blog for more updates.

Is Vote-Swapping Legal? By Jeremy Derfner

Slate, the Industry Standard, and washingtonpost.com join forces to examine the effect of the Internet on Campaign 2000.
Last week, Jamin Raskin, a law professor at American University, published an article in Slate proposing that Ralph Nader supporters who live in battleground states (such as Michigan) swap votes over the Internet with Al Gore supporters in states where the outcome of the election is an all-but-settled issue (such as Texas). That way, Nader could get the 5 percent of the popular vote he needs to secure federal matching funds for the Green Party in 2004 without tipping swing states to George W. Bush and costing Gore the electoral votes he needs to win.

It turns out a technical writer from Washington, D.C., had already thought of the idea and launched Vote Exchange Oct. 1. A Wisconsin graduate student launched a second site, Nader Trader, the same day the Raskin article appeared. Since then, the idea has exploded. At least six other trading sites have gone up: Voteswap 2000, Nader's Traders, VoteExchange, votexchange2000, nadergore.org, and WinWin Campaign. The media has given the trading trend heavy coverage, driving hundreds of thousands of visitors to these sites. Nader Trader reports that it got more than 90,000 hits on Monday alone. It seems as if vote-trading is catching on everywhere. A Democratic club in Alabama has declared Minnesota

Because of the closeness of the race and the importance of Nader's vote in closely contested states, Internet vote-swapping has the potential to transform the election. But on Monday night, Voteswap 2000, a Los Angeles-based site, shut down after its proprietors received notice from the California secretary of state that vote-trading violated state law. Votexchange 2000, based in Stanford, shut down shortly thereafter. But the other sites are up still and running. Raskin says they're doing nothing wrong; he argues that vote-trading is legal because politicians have always done it, establishing it as a normal part of the political process.

So, is vote-trading legal or not? The answer depends on whom you ask, since the issue has yet to be adjudicated. When Vote-auction.com tried to sell votes over the Internet, it was easy to determine that the site was breaking the law; there was a clear off-line precedent. But before communications technology made organized vote-swapping possible, it was a nonexistent problem. The legal uncertainty is well expressed by a notice on one of the sites, VoteExchange: "Is what I will be doing with my partner legal?" the site asks. "Since this is your business, please consult your own legal counsel."

Each state has its own statute about corrupt election practices, and there is also a federal statute pertaining to vote fraud. The federal law is very narrow. It says it is illegal to offer your vote for something of monetary value—money, a welfare voucher, or a TV set, for example. A vote, however, does not have a tangible monetary value, and according to a Justice Department spokeswoman, the department has determined that vote-trading does not violate the federal statute.

But regulating elections is left to the states whenever possible, and the state statutes tend to provide broader definitions of corrupt practices. According to the California Elections Code, it is a crime to get "any money, gift, loan, or other valuable consideration" for "induc[ing] any other person to … vote or refrain from voting for any particular person or measure." Thus the legality of vote-swapping in California hinges on how the courts might define various terms—whether a vote counts as a "valuable consideration" and whether an offer to trade votes counts as an "inducement." The California secretary of state thinks they do, but a number of experts disagree.

John Bonifaz, executive director of the nonpartisan National Voting Rights Institute, says vote-trading is protected by the First Amendment. Voting is political speech, and vote trading simply improves the quality of a vote, allowing voters to get "what they want with respect to their second choice as well as what they want with a third party," he argues. And then there is Raskin's argument that vote-trading is a time-honored tradition of legislatures at every level of government. Based on the federal statute, these familiar forms of log-rolling and pairing-off are clearly permitted. But it might be argued that under some state statutes, office holders who trade votes are breaking the law and simply avoiding prosecution.

The great irony here may be how Nader the grass-roots candidate will be out-grass-rooted by his supporters. Nader criticizes the major parties for failing to offer voters a real choice, but his supporters do not necessarily like the impractical choice he offers either. So, without official sanction, or even their candidate's approval, they are trying to make a more complex choice.

Update, Nov. 2: The National Voting Rights Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California will file a lawsuit later today on behalf of the proprietor of votexchange2000, one of the vote-trading sites that shut down after the California secretary of state threatened legal action. The plaintiffs, who hope to get an audience with a judge today or tomorrow, are seeking a temporary restraining order that would allow the sites to go live again without fear of prosecution.

Jeremy Derfner, a former Slate editorial assistant, is a graduate student in American history at Columbia University.