The Worcester Telegram has this story about the Pirate Party, which has two nominees on the Massachusetts ballot for the state legislature.
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On October 23, Public Policy Institute of California released a poll for many California races. See the poll here. Scroll down to page seven for the gubernatorial results. Only two candidates are on the ballot, incumbent Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican Neel Kashkari. The results: Brown 52%; Kashkari 36%; will not vote for Governor 4%; undecided 8%.
The pollster did not suggest any option to respondents about not voting; the 4% who said they would leave the ballot blank volunteered that information. California is the only state this year in which voters must either vote for a Democrat or a Republican for the top office on the ballot, or they can’t vote at all. California is one of only six states with only two candidates on the ballot for the top office. Of those six, California is the only one that doesn’t permit write-ins in the general election for partisan office.
Wisconsin state legislator Brett Hulsey, elected as a Democrat in 2010 and re-elected in 2012, is not running for re-election. He says he has left the Democratic Party and is now an independent. He had been elected from Dane County (the county that contains Madison).
He is running as a write-in candidate for Governor. See this story. Also, see this story. He feels that the Democratic nominee for Governor is not all that different from the state’s Republican governor, who is running for re-election.
According to this story, Sarah Palin recently endorsed Bill Walker for Governor of Alaska. Walker is the independent candidate.
On October 21, a Superior Court in Los Angeles County confirmed that California cities may use cumulative voting for their own elections. Santa Clarita had already agreed to use cumulative voting, but it had asked for a court ruling explicitly saying that cities may choose cumulative voting. Cumulative voting, for elections in which there are several winners, permits voters to cast either one vote for several candidates (typically three), or to give two votes, or even three votes, to a single candidate. See this story.