The Florida League of Women Voters has published a Voters Guide, and it contains questions for the Democratic and Republican nominees for Governor and Attorney General, and their responses. It does not mention the Libertarian nominees for those offices, even though the Libertarian nominee for Governor, Adrian Wyllie, has been recently polling at 10%, and even though the Libertarian nominee for Attorney General is one of only three candidates on the ballot (the gubernatorial race also has two independent candidates).

See this story, which is mainly about the failure of any Florida debate sponsors to invite Wyllie into any debate. The commentary is by Michelle Ertel, political analyst for Channel 13 News. The article contains a link to the League’s Voters Guide, which says, “all candidates have been given the same word limit”, an untrue statement since some candidates have been given a zero-word limit.

On October 1, the West Virginia Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Republican Party has a right to place a new nominee on the November ballot for Delegate to the House, 35th district, to replace its earlier nominee who had withdrawn in August. Here is the eleven-page opinion, with two concurrences. The case is State ex rel McDavid v Tennant.

As a result, all the ballots for that legislative district must be reprinted, at a cost of $25,000.

Seldom has any court issued such a blistering opinion, criticizing election officials. All the justices feel that the West Virginia law, allowing a party to replace a nominee who had withdrawn, was already very clear. The law does not give an unrestricted right to a candidate to withdraw, but the law says if a candidate is allowed to withdraw, the party of that nominee may replace him or her. In this case, election officials permitted the withdrawal but inexplicably wouldn’t allow a replacement. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.

According to this story, Galveston County is reprinting 5,000 ballots because they erroneously failed to give an independent candidate for County Judge any partisan label on the ballot. The faulty ballots list the independent candidate but give him no label whatsoever. Thanks to Electionline for the link.