On October 31, the California Secretary of State released a new Report of Registration. See it here. The data is as of October 19.
California has six qualified parties. Although this Report differs very little from the last Report, which was from September 4, the only qualified party that lost members is the Republican Party.
It appears likely that turnout next month will be unusually high for a midterm election. Unfortunately, the more votes are cast in some states, the higher the petition requirements will be in 2028. These are the twenty states for which that is true for some statewide minor party and independent petition requirements: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Last year, the South Carolina Forward Party made history by winning a partisan race for Mayor of Georgetown. It was the first time any party other than the Democratic and Republican Parties had won a partisan election in South Carolina since the 19th century. Next month the party hopes to win more partisan elections. It has three candidates for Horry County Council. They are in two-candidate races; their opponents are Republican nominees. See this story.
On October 27, the Potter County, Texas Republican Party filed a federal lawsuit to require the state of Texas to count all November 2026 ballots by hand before certifying the results. Potter County Republican Party v Benge, n.d., 2:26cv-215. Here is the Complaint, which ways, among other things, that some vote-counting machines use parts manufactured in China.
Potter County has a population of 117,000 and includes the city of Amarillo. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee.
On October 29, the federal government filed an amended Complaint in U.S.A. v State of Alaska, 3:26cv-376, to include the information published in the New York Times that the Mary Peltola campaign recruited the lesser-known Dan Sullivan to run for U.S. Senate this year. That allegation is now on the front page of the Complaint.
