Nader campaign files signatures late, lawsuit pending
Associated Press
AUSTIN -- Ralph Nader's independent campaign for president filed almost 80,000 signatures with the Texas secretary of state's office today, two weeks after the deadline to get on state ballot.
The campaign has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the signature collection requirement as unconstitutional.
"We've had a tremendous group of local Texans work unbelievably hard to make this happen," said campaign spokesman Jason Kafoury.
The campaign was required to collect at least 64,076 signatures by May 10 from registered voters who did not vote in the Democratic or Republican primaries. That equals 1 percent of all votes cast for president in the last election in Texas.
The campaign has challenged the signature requirement and 60-day timetable for collecting them as violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
Kafoury said the lawsuit has been scheduled for a July hearing in federal court in Austin.
The campaign filed the lawsuit May 10 when it could not meet the deadline, Kafoury said.
Texas has one of the earliest deadlines to qualify for the presidential ballot and requires a larger number of signatures to be gathered for independent candidates -- about 20,000 more -- than it requires for third-party contenders.
"This is unfair. This is unconstitutional," he said. "Texas voters deserve to have Ralph's voice out there."
Jennifer Waisath, spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office, said that although the campaign missed the filing deadline, the state will keep the signatures until told otherwise by the courts.
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