On October 29, Dennis Banks died at the age of 80. See this obituary. In 2016, he was Gloria La Riva’s running mate in California, Colorado, Iowa, and New Mexico. That ticket was on the ballot as Peace & Freedom in California, and Party for Socialism and Liberation in those other states. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.
On November 7, New York state voters will vote on whether to call a constitutional convention. This poll shows that the measure is expected to lose by more than two to one. This is unfortunate, because New York state, in my opinion, would be far better off if it had provision for the initiative, and the only way to get the initiative is a constitutional convention.
Joe Mathews, a California political analyst, writes here that the California top-two system does not help centrists.
Kansas businessman Scott Morgan has announced that he is hoping to organize a new party, for Kansas, to be called “Party of the Center.” He will try to get it on the 2018 ballot. See this story.
Kansas formerly had a law saying a party could only have one word in its name, but the Natural Law Party sued Kansas in 2000 to overturn this law, and the state conceded it could not defend the law, and repealed it.
On October 30, four Philadelphia polling place officials, all Democrats, were indicted for actions they took on March 21, 2017, the day the special legislative election was held in the 197th House district. This is the election in which the only candidate on the ballot was the Republican nominee. Both the Democratic and Green candidates were write-in candidates. The officials are charged with intimidating voters, casting bogus ballots, and certifying false election returns. See this story.
