HARRISBURG -- At 4:50 p.m. yesterday, two young volunteers for Ralph Nader's presidential campaign ran into the state elections department lugging several boxes of petitions with about 50,000 signatures aimed at getting Nader on the Pennsylvania presidential ballot in November.

Justin McVay, Nader's Western Pennsylvania coordinator, and Dan Martino, his counterpart for Eastern Pennsylvania, had driven from opposite ends of the state to make it to Harrisburg, just barely beating the 5 p.m. deadline for filing their candidate's petitions.

"That was a workout,'' said an out-of-breath McVay, 22, who graduated in May from Penn State-Behrend in Erie. Then he quipped, "This is what a political science degree gets you.''

Nader needs 25,697 valid signatures of registered voters in Pennsylvania to qualify for the presidential ballot on Nov. 2, running against President Bush and Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry.

McVay didn't know exactly how many signatures he and Martino turned in but estimated it at 50,000. State officials will spend the next week verifying the signatures to see if Nader has what he needs.

Each person must have printed and signed his or her name legibly, listed a correct address and the date the petition was signed.

State Democrats yesterday vowed to challenge Nader's petitions and will seek to keep him off the November ballot, fearing Nader will siphon anti-Bush voters away from Kerry.

"Working with the AFL-CIO, we will do everything humanly possible to fight this supreme egotist, who has lost his way,'' state House Democratic leader H. William DeWeese of Waynesburg said of Nader.

DeWeese said that when he was in college in the 1960s and Nader was just starting out in politics, "he was in my pantheon of political gods, but he has subsequently plummeted into the abyss. We will use all the resources we can command to contravene any illegitimate signatures on those petitions.''

DeWeese charged that Republicans "from coast to coast are out to help Mr. Nader. You don't need a Ph.D. in mathematics to understand that 100 percent of the vote he gets will be skimmed from Sen. Kerry's total.''

DeWeese said Nader's entry onto the Pennsylvania ballot will be "a sad day for progressive people. This former knight in shining armor has fallen into a decrepit and selfish state of affairs.''

McVay rebutted the claim that Nader is just a spoiler out to hurt Kerry and help Bush.

"If anybody is taking votes from anybody, it's Kerry taking anti-war votes from Nader,'' McVay said. "Kerry has pawned himself off as an anti-war candidate, when he voted for the war [in Iraq]. That shows he's no more anti-war than Bush is. Nader is the only true anti-war candidate.''

McVay said he's confident that Nader's petitions will withstand any challenges and Nader will have enough signatures to be on the ballot in Pennsylvania.

William J. Green, a Pittsburgh-based political consultant, said he thinks Nader's presence in the race would hurt Kerry. Green said he considers Nader to be "more progressive and liberal than the Kerry/John Edwards ticket is.''

People who don't like President Bush and who feel "frustrated by the political system'' are likely to split their votes between Kerry and Nader, Green said. If Nader were out of the race, such disaffected voters would all vote for Kerry or stay home.

Josh Wilson, political director for the Republican State Committee, said the GOP is making no effort to help Nader and predicted Bush will beat Kerry in Pennsylvania whether Nader is on the ballot or not.

"We are devoting our resources to promoting the president's agenda,'' not to helping Nader get petition signatures, Wilson said. "The Republican Party is not trying to place Ralph Nader on the ballot.''

Wilson did, however, acknowledge that polls have indicated things are better for Bush with Nader in the race. "People who vote for Nader may be looking for an alternative [to Bush] but don't want to vote for Kerry,'' he said. "That underscores the very soft support Kerry has among Democrats and maybe some independents.''