On October 16, Public Policy Polling released a poll for the 2014 South Dakota U.S. Senate race. The seat is open because incumbent Tim Johnson is retiring. The results: Republican Mike Rounds 40%, Democrat Rick Weiland 34%, Libertarian Kurt Evans 11%, undecided 15%.

Parties retain their place on the ballot in South Dakota if they poll 2.5% for Governor. No other race matters for that purpose. A party that meets the vote test then remains on for another four years. The Libertarian Party has met the 2.5% gubernatorial vote test only once, in 1994. The Constitution Party is also ballot-qualified in South Dakota for 2014. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.

On October 16, the British Supreme Court upheld British law, and ruled that two particular prisoners who are serving life terms may not vote. See this story, which has a link to the 63-page opinion. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

On October 15, the Colorado State Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court that Amendment 66 should remain on the ballot. Opponents of the initiative had charged that the petition should be rejected. Colorado requires notarization of petitions. Opponents said that the notary public himself or herself should have written in the type of identification that petitioner had presented, such as a drivers license. Instead, on some sheets, the petitioner had filled in that blank, instead of the notary public. The initiative needed 86,105 valid signatures, and had 89,820 valid signatures, assuming the points raised in the lawsuit were disregarded.

Also opponents of the initiative had said that some sheets were invalid because the petitioner didn’t always include his or her permanent address. Here is an editorial about the lawsuit. The editorial expresses the view that the objections to the petition are not important enough to invalidate the petition.