On September 16, the Commission on Presidential Debates said only Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be in the September 26 presidential debate. Also only the two major parties will be in the vice-presidential debate. But it is still possible more candidates could be added for the last two presidential debates. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Knapp for the link.
The Pennsylvania Elections Department has posted the candidate list for federal and state office, for November 2016. For the first time since 2002, there are no independent candidates for either branch of Congress. The only non-Democratic, non-Republican candidates for U.S. House are two Libertarians (districts 15 and 16). For U.S. Senate, there is a Libertarian.
For State Senate, there are no minor party candidates. There are two independents, in districts 31 and 41. The party labels are abbreviated in the state’s list. “NOA” stands for “No affiliation.” “USM” stands for “U.S. Minutemen.”
For State House, there are four Libertarians, three Greens, and five independents. “KMI” stands for “Kate McGraw Independent.” One of the independents, Louis Jasikoff, in the 117th district, is a member of the Libertarian Party, but he chose the label “independent.”
Ohio Governor John Kasich was asked on CNN which presidential candidate he will vote for. He said he will not vote for Hillary Clinton. He said it is “very unlikely” he will vote for Donald Trump. When asked about Gary Johnson, he said, “I haven’t even gone there yet. It’s a long way to election day.” See this story.
On September 15, the New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission determined that Shawn O’Connor, an independent candidate for U.S. House, 1st district, should remain on the ballot. Democratic Party officials had challenged his position on the ballot, on the grounds that some of his signers had also signed a petition for another petitioning candidate for the same office. But the Commission ruled 4-1 that the law forbidding signing for two candidates can’t be enforced, because the petition form does not warn signers that they can’t sign two petitions for the same office. See this story.
The U.S. House race, 1st district, has five candidates on the ballot: a Democrat, a Libertarian, a Republican, and two independents.
On September 15, the New York State Board of Elections removed two independent presidential candidates from the ballot. They removed Rocky De La Fuente because they believe his petition was filed one day too late. They removed Lynn Kahn because her petition was far from having 15,000 raw signatures. Neither candidate had been challenged. But in New York, the State Board of Elections removes candidates if it is obvious that they don’t meet the requirements, even if no challenge is filed.
The Board also determined that the Women’s Equality Party presidential nominee is Hillary Clinton, not Lynn Kahn. Two factions of the party had submitted different presidential nominees.
New York will only have four presidential candidates for President on its ballot. This is the fewest number of presidential candidates in the general election in New York since 1964, when there were also just four.
