Nader, ex-porn star on Utah ballot

Ralph Nader will be on the Utah ballot as a U.S. presidential candidate, but there will be no Green Party candidate to vote for here.

Friday was the deadline for presidential candidates to be certified, said Amy Naccarato, state elections officer.

And among those on the Utah ballot will be former 1970s porn star Marilyn Chambers, who under her married name, Marilyn Chambers Taylor, is the vice presidential candidate for the new Personal Choice Party. Chambers made several famous X-rated films in the 1970s, including "Behind the Green Door," before having a brief career in mainstream B movies.

New internal squabbles among Utah Green Party members meant no presidential candidate was officially certified, even though across the nation David Cobb and Patricia Lamarche head the Green ticket.

Nader, who ran under the Green banner in 2000 and has been blamed by a number of Democrats for costing former Democratic Vice President Al Gore the election, will appear this year on the Utah ballot without a party banner.

"Some of the Greens are not very happy with me," Naccarato said Friday. Earlier this week, one faction of the party came into the elections office and tried to certify Cobb and Lamarche to the Utah ballot as the Green presidential ticket.

"But they didn't have the signature of Jerry Parsons, our official liaison with the Utah party. So we couldn't do that," said Naccarato. "We can't get into the middle of an intraparty fight."

Linda Parsons, a national Green delegate, said Friday that a group of Greens tried to hold their own state convention several weeks ago to vote in support of Cobb/Lamarche and get them certified. "But they can't do that," Naccarato said. Linda Parsons said about 1,000 Utahns are registered as Green Party members, but not that many are active in the party.

Second Congressional District Green candidate Patrick Diehl sent an e-mail to the Deseret Morning News several weeks ago claiming that some in the party were illegally denying Cobb and Lamarche their rightful place on the ballot — that under national Green Party rules the national candidates must be certified to the ballot by local state parties.

But Linda Parsons says that is not the case. "We are not certifying anyone in the presidential race to the (Utah) ballot but making co-endorsements" of Cobb/Lamarche and Nader and his running mate, Peter Miguel Camejo, she said.

Naccarato said the only way for someone not certified to get on the ballot is to bring in the supporting signatures of at least 1,000 valid Utah voters. Nader-backers did that, she said, while no one did so for Cobb and Lamarche.

"It is very easy" for anyone to get a name on a Utah ballot for president, said Naccarato.