Pay up, Mr. Nader

Ralph Nader, pay your bill.

In August, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered the erstwhile 2004 candidate for president to hand over more than $82,000 in costs to registered voters who challenged his nominating petitions.

The Commonwealth Court kept Mr. Nader and his running mate, Peter Miguel Camejo, off the 2004 ballot. The petitions were fraught with fraud. "Fred Flintstone" and "Mickey Mouse" were among the signatories.

Said the Commonwealth Court: "(T)his signature-gathering process was the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this Court."

Said the state Supreme Court: "Given the magnitude of the fraud and deception implicated in Appellants' signature-gathering efforts, their claim that the Commonwealth Court acted in an unjust and unconstitutional fashion by assessing transcription and stenography costs does not pass the straight-face test."

Pay your bill, Mr. Nader.

Kim Watterson, an attorney in Pittsburgh for the voters, says efforts are under way to collect the money owed. Go for it!

While we acknowledge the unconscionable obstacles the Republicans and Democrats place before independent and third-party candidates for ballot access, the Naderites perpetrated a fraud on all of the voters. This, from the campaign of a fella who made a career of bashing Big Government and Big Business for its "frauds" on the public.

Be a man, Mr. Nader. Pay your bill.