2004, Nader failed in an attempt to get on the Oregon ballot. "Unwritten rules" disqualified over 700 valid voter signatures, all of which had already been verified by county elections officers, who themselves signed and dated every sheet with an affidavit of authenticity (often with a county seal as well). This subtraction left Nader 218 short of the 15,306 needed. He vowed to gather the necessary signatures in a petition drive. Secretary of State Bill Bradbury disqualified many of his signatures as fraudulent; the Marion County Circuit Court ruled that this action was unconstitutional as the criteria for Bradbury's disqualifications were based upon "unwritten rules" not found in electoral code, but the state Supreme Court ultimately reversed this ruling. Nader appealed this decision to the US Supreme Court, but a decision did not arrive before the 2004 election. In a majority of states where Nader's name was not printed on the ballot, write-in votes for the Nader/Camejo ticket were still permitted and counted. In Alabama and New York, a ballot line appeared in which running mate Peter Camejo was replaced with Jan D. Pierce, a Vice President of the Communications Workers of America and in 2000 was head of "Labor for Nader." Pierce had also been filed as his running mate in Ohio, where they failed to get on the ballot. In Montana Camejo was replaced with Karen Sanchirico, an Ada County, Idaho Green Party activist and founder of the Idaho Patriots. On the ballot Per CNN: Alabama Alaska Arkansas (disputed) Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida (disputed) Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Dakota Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Utah Vermont Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Off the ballot Arizona California Georgia Idaho Illinois Indiana Massachusetts Missouri Ohio Oklahoma Oregon (disputed in Kucera v. Bradbury) North Carolina Pennsylvania Texas Virginia Meeting with Congressional Black Caucus Nader attended a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. The session soon turned into a shouting exchange and several CBC members stormed out. Nader argued that he would draw enough independents and Republicans away to weaken President George W. Bush. The caucus urged Nader to give up his presidential run, fearing that vote splitting would hurt John Kerry, the Democratic Party's nominee. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) called the upcoming election "a life or death matter"