Florida's high court made a safe call in allowing Ralph Nader on the Nov. 2 ballot. Now the Legislature must clarify the guidelines for ballot access.
Published September 18, 2004
The fight over ballot access for Ralph Nader reinforces one new political axiom in Florida: Nothing is quite the same since the 2000 elections. The state election code that requires Nader's Reform Pary to affiliate with a "national party" and hold a "national convention" is full of similarly vague terms that once were solely the province of the Division of Elections. Now they are the subject of litigation.
The Florida Supreme Court's 6-1 decision Friday to put Nader on the Nov. 2 presidential ballot ought to end the legal skirmish this time, because the dispute is rooted in state law. At the very least, Secretary of State Glenda Hood can now certify the ballot and bow out, having heard from the state's highest court.
That court was put in a precarious position this time. It was asked to take sides in a high-stakes, under-the-gun showdown that had little to do with respect for ballot access or election law. The justices ultimately decided in favor of ballot access. The decision may have owed as much to their fear of bad precedent as to the facts in this case. In that respect, the justices made the safer and more judicious call. If they are to err, as they noted in their opinion, they should err on the side of allowing candidates on the ballot.
The state court's work is done, and the ballot is set. But as the justices noted, "We are left with a statute that does not have its critical terms defined or standards to ascertain compliance." Cleanup is the Legislature's job.
The law, as written, establishes a false equivalency. It requires a candidate to gather 93,000 signatures to reach the ballot, but then exempts a minor party even if it only pretends to be a party. The Nader camp all but admitted that it chose the Reform Party as an end-around to the petition requirement, and the "national convention" consisted of a conference call that violated the party's own previous bylaws.
But the Nader ploy was challenged because he in fact does have a national following as a candidate. Most of the other minor-party candidates who reached the ballot have arguably less standing, under the current law. Neither Michael Peroutka nor his Constitution Party of Florida, for example, is exactly a household name. Of the state's 9.7-million registered voters in the primary, the Constitution Party has 509. What kind of "national convention" did Peroutka hold?
The test for the Legislature will be to devise a standard that provides realistic access and clear guidelines. Numerical standards such as petitions, registered voters or performance in previous elections are more definitive than terms such as "national convention."
The current petition requirement has proved irrelevant because the number is prohibitively difficult to reach, especially for poorly financed candidates, and the minor party alternative is available practically without any oversight or adherence to the law. Could the state require all candidates to meet a smaller petition threshold and exempt those who met certain voting performance in the previous election?
After the ruling Friday night, Florida Democratic chairman Scott Maddox said he would accept the court's decision. That's wise, because a federal court appeal would contradict the arguments Democrats made in 2000, when they said the U.S. Supreme Court had no proper role in the Florida election count. At this point, Democrats would be better off spending their time and money trying to convince voters, rather than judges, that Nader is a lost cause.
