TALLAHASSEE, Florida (AFP) - The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that third-party presidential hopeful Ralph Nader can appear on ballots in the decisive state, 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.
The Democratic Party, which is suing to remove Nader from the ballot in several key states, said it would not appeal the decision.
Nader will also appear on Colorado ballots after a judge ruled in his favor in the western state Friday.
"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 Florida 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 was so vague it was impossible to tell whetehr 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.
Meanwhile a Denver judge ruled against the Colorado Democratic Party, which had also argued that the Reform Party did not follow state law in nominating Nader as their standard-bearer.
Nader, who is clawing his way onto ballots nationwide ahead of the November 2 election he is certain to lose, welcomed the decisions.
"The anti-Democratic Party should stop trying to limit voter choices through harassment and legal technicalities and start debating the issues," he said in a statement Friday.
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.
Bush won Colorado then and is expected to do so again this year. It wields far less weight in the US electoral system than the populous southeastern state of Florida.
Nader and running mate Peter Camejo are currently on the ballot in 36 states and in litigation in eight of those, his campaign said Friday.
He is affiliated with the tiny Reform Party in only six states, and is otherwise running as an independent candidate.
The two are also fighting court battles to get on the ballot in seven other states.
Nader is keeping up his quixotic campaign against what he sees as the corruption and lies of the American political system.
"It is broken, it is corrupted and it is indentured to giant business," Nader said at a press conference in early September.
Nader, 70, made his name in the 1960s as a consumer activist who took on big corporations over safety hazards.
But even some longtime supporters say he is tarnishing his reputation as an honest intellectual and civic do-gooder with his political campaigns.
Many Democrats are bitter over his 2000 presidential run, blaming the votes he siphoned off in Florida for scuppering Gore's hopes and putting Bush into the White House.
A new poll out Saturday showed Bush's lead over Kerry widening to nine points (50 to 41 percent) from seven points last week, and Nader gaining support (three percent, up from one last week).
Nader's support is strongest among groups that favor Kerry, such as liberals and union members, according to the CBS/New York Times poll.