Validity of Oregon petitions for Nader attacked

By BRAD CAIN
The Associated Press

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After two earlier nominating conventions failed to qualify Nader for the ballot, his supporters launched a petition drive aimed at gathering at least 15,000 valid signatures.

The Service Employees International Union, which is backing Democrat John Kerry's candidacy, said its analysis of signatures submitted so far suggests two-thirds are invalid.

The public employees union said it heard from one man who witnessed Nader petitioners copying names from a phone book and from another man who said someone forged his name.

Alice Dale, vice president of the union, said it appears there has been "overwhelming and systemic fraud" in the Nader petition effort.

"Furthermore, looking at the petition sheets for any length of time raises the question of whether campaign officials knew or at the very least should have known about the false signatures," Dale said.

Nader's Oregon campaign coordinator, Greg Kafoury, denied there was any deliberate attempt by the campaign to turn in fraudulent or invalid signatures.

Kafoury said about 65 percent of the signatures submitted to Multnomah County so far have been found valid, which he said was about average for a petition drive.

Further, he said the allegations against the Nader campaign represent more "dirty tricks" by Democrats and unions backing Kerry who want to keep Nader off Oregon's presidential ballot.

Both major parties view Nader as a potential spoiler who could draw votes from Kerry and help President Bush.

Kafoury said he remained hopeful Nader supporters will be able to round up the 15,000 valid petition signatures needed to qualify him for the ballot.
 
The signatures are due next Tuesday, though Nader backers will need to submit them this week to give counties time to verify the signatures.

The public employees union, meanwhile, said it tried to contact 269 people whose names were on Nader's petitions.

The union said that based on those contacts, it found that 27 percent of the addresses do not exist, 22 percent of the names belonged to people who are dead or do not live at the address, and 17 percent reported they did not sign the petition.

Acting on the complaints about alleged forgeries, the Oregon Elections Division yesterday opened a formal investigation into the conduct of the Nader petition drive.

"We do investigate every complaint. We take allegations of fraud very seriously," spokeswoman Anne Martens said.

Kafoury said he knew of isolated instances of unscrupulous petition gatherers turning in "questionable" signatures and that eight of them were fired for doing so.

But he said the campaign's validity rate for signatures was on par with other petition drives and that the unions and Democrats were using the allegations to try to discredit Nader.

"This whole thing is a smoke screen," the Portland lawyer said.