Nader, who is on the ballot in at least 33 states and has challenges pending in several others, won 5.8 percent of the vote in Hawai'i in the 2000 election.

Democrats have accused Republicans of helping Nader siphon away liberal voters from John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee. Many Democrats are still raw over Nader's role in 2000, when he took 3 percent of the vote nationally as George W. Bush narrowly defeated Al Gore in one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history.

Jay Friedheim, the attorney representing Nader here, is a Republican who lost in the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate. But he said his work for the campaign has nothing to do with partisan politics. He said he was approached because people close to the Nader campaign were aware of an October 2003 case where he won $2.3 million for a dockworker who was beaten for reporting a timecard scheme.

Friedheim said he is familiar with election law in part because of his four unsuccessful campaigns for public office. He has run twice, as a Democrat, for the state House of Representatives, and twice, as a Republican, for the U.S. Senate. He finished third in the Republican primary last month for the right to challenge Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawai'i.

He said he is interested in making sure that people have confidence in Hawai'i elections. "That's what we're talking about — transparency of the electoral process," Friedheim said.

But state House Rep. Brian Shatz, D-25th (Makiki, Tantalus), said he is troubled by what he sees as a pattern of Republicans helping Nader. Several prominent Bush campaign donors have also given money to Nader, for example, and Republicans in Michigan collected signatures and went to court to try to get Nader on the ballot.

"It's troubling to see that there seems to be a concerted effort, nationally and locally, by Republicans to split the progressive vote between Nader and Kerry," Shatz said.