ELECTION Nader campaign makes Pa. ballot

Democrats have a week to protest the signatures' validity.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader beat a Monday deadline and submitted nominating papers aimed at getting the consumer activist on Pennsylvania's ballot.
Nader's spokesman Justin McVay said the campaign had compiled about 50,000 signatures, almost double the 25,697 signatures required for independent candidates in the Nov. 2 election in Pennsylvania, a battleground state.
"We definitely have more than that [requirement]," McVay said. "It's just a question of what the legal challenges are going to be."
Democrats -- many of whom blame Nader's candidacy for Al Gore's loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election, and fear he could take votes away from Democratic nominee John Kerry this year -- said they plan to challenge the validity of Nader's petitions.
Nader's campaign workers, many wearing shorts, T-shirts and sandals, brought in boxes of petitions to the state Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation in the Capitol building just minutes before the 5 p.m. deadline.
The petitions were accepted Monday night after bureau workers reviewed them and determined that the campaign had enough signatures, said Brian McDonald, a spokesman for the Department of State, which oversees the bureau.
Protest
Democrats now have a week to file a protest in Commonwealth Court in an effort to prove that the Nader campaign did not compile valid information for 25,697 registered Pennsylvania voters.
"If there is any reasonable opportunity for us to contravene Mr. Nader through legal channels, we will launch the political equivalent of hand-to-hand combat," said state House Democratic leader H. William DeWeese of Greene County.
The Bush and Kerry campaigns both consider Pennsylvania crucial to winning the November election, since it is not only the fifth-largest electoral prize but a "swing" state in which the divide between Gore and Bush in 2000 was less than 5 percent. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have made dozens of trips to Pennsylvania, more than any other state, since the election.
Kerry spokesman Mark Nevins said the campaign's strategy would not change, whether or not Nader was on the ballot.
"Our position is and remains that we will go after every vote, including people who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000," he said.
In 2000, Gore won Pennsylvania, beating Bush by 204,840 votes out of 4.9 million cast in the state. Nader received 103,392 votes.
In Florida, the largest swing state in the nation in this election, Nader captured even fewer votes out of a greater number cast -- 97,488 votes out of nearly 6 million cast. But Bush's 537-vote edge over Gore there was so tiny that Democrats blamed Nader for chipping away at liberal support for Gore, and many have urged Nader to drop out of the race.
Nader, who ran as the Green Party candidate in 1996 and 2000, has worked to get his name on ballots in 46 states and Washington, D.C. Thus far, he has been approved for ballots in Nevada and New Jersey and, if he chooses, has automatic ballot access in six other states, including Florida, by virtue of being the Reform Party nominee, Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said.
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