Amazingly, the Miami Herald doesn't think it merits the front page, but it has an article about Jeb & Co. putting Nader back on the ballot (registration required). The article doesn't add much to the Reuters story.

As the Herald tells it, the state's ruling applies to all ballots not just the foreign absentees, at least in theory, but everyone understands that the courts will have time to rule before it has practical application outside the foreign absentees.

The Herald does not give a definitive answer on the critical timing question: whether a ruling was needed NOW to get the foreign absentees printed in time. The article does quote Miami-Dade election officials as saying the next court hearing would have given them enough time, but also Glenda Hood's claim that other counties have more ballots to print:

A spokesman for Miami-Dade County Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan said her department is under no time crunch to print the ballots, but Hood said that's not the case in counties with large numbers of military voters who are overseas.

And [Jeb] Bush said that if the court's ruling is ultimately upheld, it's easier for the state to remove Nader's name from the general election ballot, even if it's included on the overseas ballots that federal law requires be postmarked by Saturday.

One thing was certain Monday: Florida's highest court will enter the fray. The Supreme Court said in an order Monday night that the case involves “matters of great public importance.”

The Florida Court of Appeals is set to have a hearing tomorrow. The Florida Supreme Court has not yet set a hearing date. [UPDATE: But it has set an accelerated briefing schedule, see Abstract Appeal for all the juicy details.]

My initial gut feeling is that this action will backfire: courts don't like to have their jurisdiction challenged, so this is like poking a stick in the eye of the Florida Supreme Court.

But here's an alternate hypothesis, one whose plausibility turns on Jeb Bush/Karl Rove being even smarter than I think they probably are: Nader has hired Ken Sukhia, a smart GOP lawyer to represent him. Suppose Sukhia concluded that Nader's case is doomed in the Florida courts as the law and the facts are against him. Could the strategy be to try to goad the Florida courts into some rushed and intemperate ruling which can then be appealed to the friendly US Supreme Court, with the suggestion that those nuts in Florida are at it again? (In fact we have a pretty high-quaility state Supreme Court.)

After the fiasco of the 2000 election, in which the Republicans claimed that all they were demanding was punctilious compliance with formal rules, you might think that the apparent failure of the GOP to file its ballot papers on time (combined with a Republican official turning a blind eye to the error!) in Florida presented a golden opportunity to the Democrats.

Oddly, that's not what leading state Democrats seem to think: Decision2004: Did Bush camp err on ballot papers?:

Florida Democratic Party chairman Scott Maddox said he knew the president's certificate of nomination did not reach the state until Sept. 2, but he said he decided not to make an issue of it.

“To keep an incumbent president off the ballot in a swing state the size of Florida because of a technicality, I just don't think would be right,” Maddox said.

Why not seize the opportunity to beat up the GOP a little and stoke memories of the 2000 elections?

One reason might be that the state Democrats are, by and large, cowed.

Another reason might be that the GOP controls both houses of the state legislature and the Governorship. So they would simply call a special session and change the rule. Which I think would be fully legal. Then they'd stoke their base.

Once you look at it that way, it's a tougher call. But I'd take the chance anyway if it were up to me. A mistake of this type fits the 'Bush incompetence' meme (and the hypocrisy meme) that the Democrats should be pushing at every chance they get. Just imagine that the shoe were on the other foot and ask yourself if Karl Rove would sue?

The Democratic move would be most plausible if there were other people with standing to raise the issue. But answering that question requires a much greater understanding of Florida election law than I command. All I can do is shoot off a couple emails to people who might know….