TALLAHASSEE, Florida, (AFP) - The Florida Supreme Court has ruled Ralph Nader can appear on state ballots as a presidential candidate, increasing the chance the maverick contender will again influence the outcome of the presidential election.
The 6-1 ruling ended a legal tussle that saw state election officials printing out two sets of ballots, one containing Nader's name and one without.
"We are relieved with the Supreme Court ruling to enable our candidate to be on the November ballot," said Patrick Slevin, spokesman for the Reform Party of Florida.
"But we are also angry and disappointed we had to go through this process to begin with. This is a black eye for Florida, and it should have never have happened."
A lower court judge last week struck Nader from the state ballot, ruling that his association with the Reform Party was not sincere and that the party did not hold a bona fide national convention, as parties are required to do to field a candidate under Florida state law.
But the Supreme Court said state ballot access law is so vague it is impossible to tell if Nader and the Reform Party abused it.
The ruling was rushed through to enable state election officials to meet a Saturday deadline to send 25,000 absentee ballots to Florida voters overseas.
The Democratic Party, which is suing to remove Nader from the ballot in 20 key states, said it would not appeal the decision.
Democrats fear that Nader could win votes that would otherwise have gone to the Democratic candidate, as he did in 2000, when Nader received 97,421 votes in Florida.
George W. Bush beat Democrat Al Gore by a mere 527 votes in Florida after the US Supreme Court put an end to recounts of votes in the state, handing the disputed election to Bush after a weeks-long stand-off.