On October 5, the Montana Farmers Union and the Great Falls Tribune sponsored a candidate debate for U.S. House. All three ballot-listed candidates participated. See this story.
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Although the ballot-qualified Reform Party of New York is nominating Wendy Long for U.S. Senate (she is also the Republican nominee), it has no presidential nominee. Perhaps someone who knows why will comment. It had been expected it would nominate Donald Trump. Thanks to William Stevenson for this news.
On Octdober 6, independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin chose Mindy Finn to be his vice-presidential running mate. Here is the wikipedia page about her. She lives in the District of Columbia. She is a Republican who earlier this year supported Marco Rubio for president.
On September 29, Steven Machat, an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Florida, sued the Cox Media Group in federal court over his exclusion from their debates. However, on October 5, his case was dismissed on procedural grounds. He represented himself and it appears he didn’t allege there is a federal question of law in his case. Machat v Cox Media Group, s.d. Florida, 1:16cv-24155.
The U.S. Senate debates in Florida are October 17 and October 26. Only the Republican and Democratic nominees have been invited.
On October 6, a Texas state trial court in Austin ruled that independent candidate Laura Thompson does have enough valid signatures to be a candidate for re-election to her seat in the State House of Representatives, district 120. The chair of the Bexar County Democratic Party, Manuel Medina, had sued the Secretary of State to remove her from the ballot. Medina argued that Thompson did not have 500 valid signatures, but the court disagreed.
In Texas, Democrats and Republicans need no signatures to get themselves on a primary ballot. The entire purpose of ballot access laws is to measure whether a candidate has a modicum of support. It is obvious that Thompson has voter support, because she won the special election a few months ago to fill her seat. Nothing could so illustrate the absurdity of U.S. ballot access jurisprudence than this case, in which the Democratic Party nominee hoped to be the only name on the November ballot, by removing her only opponent. UPDATE: see this story.