Sam Husseini here advocates that the Commission on Presidential Debates should rely on polls that ask voters who they favor for president, not who they would vote for if the election were being held that day. Many voters vote strategically, and do not vote for the candidate they like the best. The few public opinion polls that ask the respondent’s favorite candidate usually produce different results than polls that ask about voter intention.
On August 18, a trial state court in Illinois rejected the attempt of Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd to run for re-election as an independent. He had enough valid signatures, but he was still kept off the ballot because late last year, he filed a petition to run in the Democratic primary for the same office. He withdrew his primary petition, so was not on the March 2016 primary ballot. But the state court ruled that individuals who submit primary petitions cannot run as independents in the general, even if they didn’t actually run in the primary. See this story.
Michigan election officials have determined that the Working Class Party petition has enough valid signatures. The law requires 31,566. The group submitted 50,025. The Secretary of State’s office did a random sample and estimates that the petition has 38,974 valid. The party has two candidates for U.S. House, and one for State Board of Education.
The other qualified parties in Michigan are Constitution, Democratic, Green, Libertarian, Natural Law, and Republican. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
August 17 is the Montana deadline for independent presidential petitions. The only petitions received by the Secretary of State are Jill Stein’s petition and Rocky De La Fuente’s petition. The law requires 5,000, and each submitted over twice the requirement. Montana permits candidates who use the independent petition procedure to have a party label on the ballot, so Jill Stein will have “Green” next to her name. De La Fuente’s label will be “independent.”
The qualified parties in Montana are Democratic, Libertarian, and Republican. Thanks to Mike Fellows for this news.
