The California Secretary of State here has the votes cast so far in the Mock Election being held in many high schools in California. With approximately 200,000 votes cast so far, the three minor party presidential nominees on the California ballot have 21.9% of the vote between them, whereas Republican nominee Donald Trump has 19.7%. Thanks to Gloria La Riva for this news.
Politico here reports that high-level figures in the national Democratic Party have formed the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which will work for redistricting reform. The group will sponsor statewide ballot initiatives, and also fund lawsuits. The group will have far more credibility if it attacks gerrymanders created by Democrats, as well as gerrymanders created by Republicans. Illinois is an example of a state in which Democrats have gerrymandered the U.S. House and legislative districts, and in which Democrats have fought against redistricting reform.
According to this story, Effective Leadership for America, a Republican PAC that supports the Republican nominee for U.S. House, Arizona First District, is also spending money to boost the Green Party nominee in the same race. The incumbent Democrat. Ann Kirkpatrick, is not running for re-election. In 2014 she defeated her Republican opponent 97,391 to 87,723. No minor party or independent candidates were in this race in 2014.
The 2016 Green Party nominee in this race, Ray Parrish, was nominated in the 2016 Green Party primary with 66 write-in votes. A Libertarian, Kim Allen, ran in the Libertarian primary in this district this year. Allen received 144 write-ins in the Libertarian primary. But under discriminatory Arizona election laws, the Green candidate only needed one write-in to be nominated in his primary, whereas the Libertarian needed several hundred. So the Green is on the November ballot but the Libertarian is not. This law was written in 2015 by the Republican-majority in the legislature, and is being challenged in U.S. District Court by the Libertarian Party. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
This article in the Atlanta Progressive News has quite a lot of detail about the Georgia Green Party presidential petition drive this year, and why the state did not determine that it had at least 7,500 valid signatures.
A poll released at the end of September for U.S. House, New York 22nd district, has these results: Republican Claudia Tenney 35%; Democrat Kim Myers 30%; independent candidate Martin Babinec 24%; undecided 11%.
Babinec won the Reform Party nomination in June with write-ins. He is the only New York Reform Party nominee for Congress who is not the same person as the Republican nominee. Normally the Reform Party of New York operates as a satellite of the Republican Party. Babinec has spent $1,000,000 for his campaign, and is a businessman.
The 22nd district is usually a safe district for Republicans. The incumbent is not running for re-election. Babinec has been allowed into all the debates. The 22nd district is in central New York and runs from Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania border. It includes Utica and Binghampton. Thanks to Michael Drucker for this news.
