COLUMBUS -Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader has sued the state in federal court to force his name onto the November ballot.
A Tuesday hearing is expected in a lawsuit Nader filed in U.S. District Court about a state law requiring people who collect petitions for candidates to live in Ohio.
That law violates the constitutional rights of registered voters who signed the petitions but whose names were discarded because the petition collector didn't live in the state, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday.
Instead, the law is meant for the sole convenience of the secretary of state and local boards to meet procedural requirements for checking a nominating petition, the lawsuit said.
The issue comes down to why a collector's residency in Ohio matters, said Nader attorney Michael Cassidy.
The question is
how applicable is that in a federal election? he said.
Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell ruled last month that Nader failed to collect the 5,000 signatures needed to appear on the ballot after forged signatures and petitions circulated by non-Ohioans left Nader short.
Blackwell will fight the lawsuit, said spokesman Carlo LoParo.
Ohio law requires that circulators of candidate petitions be Ohio voters he said. That is the law of the state and that will continue to be the law of the state until it is changed.
The federal lawsuit focuses on 1,971 signatures of registered voters that were ruled invalid because the person who circulated the petition did not live in Ohio.
That ruling came after Democrats, fearful that Nader could cost them votes if his name is on the ballot, presented evidence that petition collectors registered at fraudulent addresses or places they did not live.
Nader also has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to force county boards of election to review their voter registration applications for the names of people who signed Nader's petitions but whose registrations might not have been processed.
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