On October 20, Larry Sanders, elder brother of Bernie Sanders, placed fourth in a British special House of Commons election. Larry Sanders was the Green Party nominee. See this story. It is not surprising that the Conservative Party won this special election, because it is a safe seat for the Conservative Party.
This year, there are Democratic candidates for state legislature in 4,690 of the races. There are Republican candidates for state legislature in 4,655 races. This is the first time since 2008 that there have been more races with a Democrat running than with a Republican running.
In 41.7% of the legislative races this year, either the Republicans, or the Democrats, failed to run anyone. That isn’t quite as bad as 2014, when the percentage of races without one of the major parties was 43.3%.
The largest newspaper in West Virginia, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, has endorsed John Buckley for Secretary of State. He is the Libertarian nominee. There are three candidates in the race; the others are incumbent Democrat Natalie Tennant, and Republican Mac Warner. Here is the editorial.
On October 20, U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton extended the Virginia deadline for registering to vote two more days. The state did not oppose the lawsuit, which had been filed on October 18. The reason is that the on-line voter registration page of the State Board of Elections hasn’t been working this week. It apparently crashed because too many people were trying to use it.
Both sides urged the judge to extend the deadline through Monday, October 24, but he only extended it until the end of the day Friday, October 21. There are fears that the site may crash again. The case is New Virginia Majority Education Fund v Virginia Department of Elections, e.d., 1:16cv-1319. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
The North Dakota deadline for a declared write-in presidential candidate to file was October 18. Six individuals filed: Robert Buchanan, Cherunda Fox, Laurence Kotlikoff, Mike Maturen, Evan McMullin, and Marshall Schoenke.
Six presidential candidates are on the ballot in North Dakota: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Darrell Castle, and Rocky De La Fuente.
