Posted on: Tuesday, November 2, 2004
Nader's ineligibility for ballot upheld
| • | Record turnout in early voting |
| • | Many bracing for a long night |
| • | First-time voters sure of one thing — their turnout |
By Ken Kobayashi
Advertiser Courts Writer
Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader yesterday lost another court bid to get on Hawai'i's general election ballot.
Circuit Judge Sabrina McKenna rejected a challenge by Nader supporters to a decision by state elections chief Dwayne Yoshina, who concluded that they fell short, by about 370 names, of the 3,711 signatures required to get an independent candidate on the ballot.
McKenna also rejected a similar challenge by supporters of presidential candidate Michael Peroutka.
Eric Seitz, lawyer for the Nader and Peroutka supporters, had argued that hundreds of names for both candidates had not been counted because of what he called "incredible sloppiness" by the state elections office. He said the office threw out names rather than following up on information on the petitions that would have shown they were legitimate.
But McKenna ruled that the process set up for counting the names was not unconstitutional. She also said she found no impropriety in Yoshina designating himself as the one who would review his office's decisions on whether the candidates submitted enough valid names.
She said her own review of the petitions showed that many names were not legible and that the law clearly says those names may not be counted.
U. S. District Judge David Ezra on Oct. 13 rejected a request by Seitz for a federal court order to get the names of the two presidential candidates on the ballot.
Seitz said the federal lawsuit is still pending.
