On November 8, the Federal Election Commission issued a press release, mentioning that a few weeks ago, it sent a check for $17,689,800 to the Republican National Committee, and a check for the same amount to the Democratic National Committee, so that each of these two parties can pay for the costs of their 2012 national conventions.

The Democratic convention is the latest in U.S. history. It is September 3-6, 2012, in Charlotte. The Republican convention is August 27-30 in Tampa. Because the Democratic convention is so late, all the states have laws to say that qualified parties need not notify elections officials of the names of their presidential and vice-presidential nominees until 60 days before the general election. The 2012 election is on November 6.

On November 8, Missouri held a special election to fill the vacant State House seat, 83rd district. Three candidates were on the ballot, a Democrat, a Republican, and an independent. The independent won the election. The results: Tracy McCreery 1,647; Democrat Jeff O’Connell 1,096; Republican Patrick Brennan 1,005. See this story. Thanks to Ken Bush for this news.

The number of signatures for a statewide minor party or independent candidatea in Pennsylvania in 2012 is likely to be approximately 21,500 signatures. The number is determined by calculating 2% of the vote cast on November 8, 2011, for David Wecht for Superior Court Judge. With 99% of the precincts reporting, Wecht has 1,017,499 votes. Besides the missing 1% of the precincts, his total will probably also rise when provisional ballots are tallied.