Most states permit write-ins for president, but only tally write-ins for candidates who filed a declaration of write-in candidacy. In seventeen states, the deadline for filing lies in the future, so at this time it isn’t possible to know the complete list. But already there is a record number of declared write-in presidential candidates. The biggest list is in Maryland, with 39. West Virginia has 34 and Montana has 33.
On Monday, October 10, a federal holiday, U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Walker ordered Florida to extend its deadline for individuals to register to vote from October 11 to 5 p.m. on October 12. A hearing will be held on October 12 to determine if that deadline should be extended further. This is amazingly fast work for a lawsuit that was only filed on Sunday, October 9. Here is the 16-page order in Florida Democratic Party v Scott, n.d., 4:16cv-626.
The basis is the storm emergency that sent hundreds of thousands of Florida residents away from their homes, and which caused postal mail delivery to be suspended in about half the counties of the state. The order applies statewide.
The order says, “The Constitution guarantees the right of voters to ‘cast their ballots and have them counted.’ U.S. v Classic, 313 US 299 (1941).” Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
The Deseret News, one of the daily newspapers in Salt Lake City, has this op-ed by Darrell Castle, Constitution Party nominee for President. The Church of Latter Day Saints owns the newspaper.
On October 10, NBC/WSJ released a poll for the presidential election. The results: Hillary Clinton 46%, Donald Trump 35%, Gary Johnson 9%, Jill Stein 2%, other or undecided 8%. This poll was taken after the Friday afternoon news about the Trump 2005 remarks to Billy Bush. See here. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
On Sunday, October 9, the Florida Democratic Party sued the state government to extend the October 11 deadline for individuals to register to vote. Florida Democratic Party v Scott, n.d., 4:16cv-626. Here is the Complaint. The lawsuit argues that the deadline should be extended because so many Florida residents in the past week had to leave their home areas, to avoid the tropical storm. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker, an Obama appointee. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
