The Alameda County Superior Court oral argument in Rubin v Bowen has been postponed. The new date is not set yet. The old date had been October 9. Thanks to Mike Rubin for this news. Rubin v Bowen is the minor party lawsuit against the California top-two system.
By the end of Saturday, October 6, the Pennsylvania petition process showed that the statewide Libertarian petition has enough valid signatures, even should the State Supreme Court reverse the favorable ruling of the Commonwealth Court of several weeks ago, concerning voters who moved, signed, and had never updated their registration records. And there are still 1,000 signatures to be reviewed. The challengers are now attempting to dispute approximately 100 signatures that they had already conceded to be valid. Thanks to Richard Schwarz for this news.
On October 5, Alicia Dearn, an attorney for the Gary Johnson campaign, filed a complaint with the Philadelphia District Attorney, alleging that private detectives working for the Republicans who challenged the statewide Libertarian Party Pennsylvania petition tried to bribe at least one Libertarian petitioner to say that he or she had forged signatures. Dearn also told the District Attorney that at least one of these private detectives attempted to pass himself or herself off as an FBI agent.
In the meantime, the petition-checking process still isn’t finished, but it is very likely that the petition will have enough valid signatures even if the Pennsylvania Supreme Court should reverse the favorable decision of the Commonwealth Court on whether signatures are valid if the signer moved inside the same county and hadn’t yet re-registered.
According to an October 5 story in the Washington Times, Americans Elect’s super-PAC has spent $700,000 on independent expenditures recently to boost Angus King, the former independent Governor of Maine who is running for the U.S. Senate as an independent. The story also says that the donor to the Americans Elect super-PAC who made this possible is New York city Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who is himself a registered independent.
Several recent New Mexico polls for the U.S. Senate race have shown Independent American Party nominee Jon Barrie at 9%. These polls also generally show the Democratic nominee, Martin Heinrich, hovering near 50%, and Republican nominee Heather Wilson, the Republican nominee, at or near 40%.
Barrie is the first minor party or independent candidate for U.S. Senate to appear on the New Mexico ballot since 1996. The Independent American Party of New Mexico is not affiliated with any party outside New Mexico, and has no presidential nominee.
