On October 9, the Commission on Presidential Debates cancelled the October 15 presidential debate. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
Efforts will be made to plan a debate that would be held on October 22.
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On October 9, a virtual debate was held on Florida’s top-two initiative. See this story for an account of the points raised by each side.
On October 9, U.S. District Court Judge Wilhelmina Wright, an Obama appointee, issued an injunction in Craig v Simon, 0:20cv-2066. She enjoined the Minnesota law that says if a candidate dies within 79 days of an election, the election is postponed. Here is the 24-page order.
The Legal Marijuana Now Party nominee for U.S. House, 2nd district, Adams Weeks, died on September 21, which was closer to the election than 79 days, so under the state law, the election was postponed to February 9 and the Legal Marijuana Now Party was permitted to name a new nominee. But under the court order, the original ballots will be used on November 2, and the Legal Marijuana Now Party nominee will be shown as Weeks.
The basis for the court order is that federal law requires states to hold congressional elections in November of even-numbered years. 2 USC 7.
One wonders how the court would have ruled if it had been Congresswoman Angela Craig (the Democratic incumbent, who is running for re-election) who had died. Elections do frequently go forward with the name of a deceased person’s name on the ballot, and if the deceased person wins, then the state holds a special election. But the party whose nominee had died before the election is always at a great disadvantage in that situation.
On October 9, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed all the Progressive Party member-nominees who are running for state office in Vermont, but only if they also have the Democratic nomination. He did not endorse any Progressive Party nominee who does not have the Democratic nomination as well.
Vermont permits aggregated fusion: candidates with the nomination of more than one party appear on the November ballot once, with both party labels following their names. The party listed first indicates that the candidate is a member of that party. Parties listed second are parties that nominated that same candidate, even though that candidate isn’t a member of the second-listed party.
The Progressive Party has 18 member-nominees on the ballot for state legislature. The Sanders endorsement includes twelve of them.
This year, the South Dakota Libertarian Party has seven legislative nominees on the ballot. That is the most that any party in South Dakota has had, other than the Republican and Democratic Parties, since 1928.
All of the seven Libertarians are running for State Senate; none are running for State House.
South Dakota had a very strong Farmer-Labor Party in the 1920’s, but it went off the ballot after 1928. In 1924 it elected a State Senator in South Dakota, and polled 13.3% for Governor.