Wispolitics.com is reporting George Dunst, legal counsel for Wisconsin's Election Board, has issued an opinion stating Nader should be on the ballot:
But those interests are not implicated when the candidate would only appear on the Wisconsin ballot as an independent candidate and would not appear on the ballot as the candidate of any political party. A voter can’t be confused about a candidate whose name only appears as an independent candidate. Wisconsin voters ought not be confused about a candidate’s ballot presence in other states because Wisconsin voters don’t vote on the ballots of other states. The integrity of the election process and the stability of the political system in Wisconsin are not imperiled by the nomination process in each of the other 49 states. The only circumstance in which a candidate’s independent nomination implicates the three interests named in Swamp is when the candidate has also been nominated by a ballot-recognized political party in Wisconsin.
In balancing a candidate’s limited right to ballot access with the right of the state to control its ballot and election process – which is what Swamp and related cases are about - a state would be hard-pressed to justify, or find judicial support for, denial of ballot access to a candidate solely because of the candidate’s exercise of his or her associational rights in other states.
This will almost certainly mean Nader will not be on the ballot this fall. Current odds of Nader being on the ballot: 20%.
