Nader’s isle petitions
to get second review

State elections chief Dwayne Yoshina agreed Friday to a review of rejected signatures on petitions seeking to include independent candidate Ralph Nader on Hawaii's presidential ballot.

The agreement calls for the state Office of Elections to review the rejected signatures in the presence of Nader campaign officials. If there is disagreement on the validity of a signature, it will be flagged for further review and a final decision by Yoshina.

Jay Friedheim, an attorney for the Nader campaign, said he assumes the review will be held next week. Elections spokesman Rex Quidilla said only that the review will be soon.

Friedheim said that, in the agreement, the Nader campaign isn't waiving any further challenge, including the possibility of going to court on constitutional issues.

Yoshina agreed to the review two days after a hearing requested by the Nader campaign on the elections chief's earlier ruling that Nader had failed to submit enough valid signatures to be included on the ballot.

The Nader campaign was required to submit 3,711 valid signatures. The state Office of Elections' review of the petitions showed that Nader came up 587 signatures short.

Yoshina held a similar hearing Thursday on a challenge from representatives of Constitution Party presidential candidate Michael A. Peroutka. Yoshina has ruled that Peroutka fell 240 signatures short to be included on the Hawaii ballot.

Yoshina has five days to rule on that challenge. But David Porter, Hawaii spokesman for the Constitution Party, said he has sent Yoshina a letter proposing a settlement similar to that of the Nader campaign.

Friedheim at the Wednesday hearing cited several inconsistencies by elections officials.

The Office of Elections informed Nader supporters on Sept. 20 that they fell 39 signatures short. Four days later, Yoshina informed them a recalculation showed they were 587 signatures short.

Lori Tomczyk, ballot operations coordinator in the Office of Elections, said the discrepancy was a result of one batch of petitions being counted twice.

Friedheim also noted that the Sept. 20 letter said the Nader campaign had submitted a total of 7,184 signatures, when, in fact, only 5,781 signatures were submitted.

Tomczyk said she was concerned with determining the number of valid signatures and not the total number submitted.

Friedheim said the change in the number of valid signatures and a 24 percent discrepancy in the total number of signatures submitted warranted a review of the rejected signatures.

Robert Stiver, head of the Hawaii Nader campaign, said nearly 1,500 of the signers were listed by the Office of Elections as "not registered," a category that included people whose addresses did not match those on the statewide list of registered voters.

Stiver said the campaign's own check of 170 of the "not registered" against the statewide list showed that 25 of them were registered, or valid.

Porter said a preliminary review of his petitions found 89 rejected signatures that should have been considered valid. He said the Constitution Party may file a lawsuit if Peroutka is not included on the Hawaii ballot.

The two minority parties had questioned Yoshina's ability to act impartially as the hearings officer since decisions by his office were being challenged. But Friedheim said later that Yoshina had given the Nader campaign a fair hearing.