On October 15, the Denver Post, the biggest newspaper in Colorado, endorsed Kathleen Curry for re-election. See the editorial here; scroll down to State House district 61. Curry is being forced to run for re-election as a write-in candidate because she changed her registration last December from “Democrat” to “independent.” Thanks to Nancy Hanks for the link.
On October 20, the North Dakota Supreme Court will hear Recall North Dakota v Jaeger, 2010-0228. The issue is whether members of Congress may be recalled. North Dakota is one of the states that permits recall. The state law has no exception for members of Congress. However, the Secretary of State refused to furnish petition blanks to a committee that wants to recall U.S. Senator Kent Conrad, a Democrat whose seat is not up until 2012.
The same issue is pending in the New Jersey Supreme Court, with a decision likely to come out at any time. That case is Committee to Recall Robert Menendez v Wells. The oral argument was on May 25, 2010. UPDATE: see this news story about the oral argument. It seems to have gone badly for recall proponents.
The print and internet editions of the New York Times of October 18 have this article about the five non-major party gubernatorial candidates in New York. This coverage is very rare for the New York Times. The article itself would not exist, surely, except for the fact that all of these candidates are in tonight’s gubernatorial debate.
Other media are also covering this debate. Some press reports grumble that the stage will be “crowded”, but these articles never mention that at the beginning of the major party presidential primary season in 2007, there were numerous debates for the major party presidential candidates, in which there were as many as ten candidates on the stage for the Republican race, and nine for the Democratic race. As various presidential candidates dropped out, that number shrank. But for months and months, there were many Republican presidential debates with seven candidates on the stage.
This year, two Mississippi state court judges died after they had filed to run for re-election. Both had been running unopposed. Therefore, voters will elect someone to each judicial post by write-in votes. See this story.
One of the judges died in July, so his name was removed from the ballot. The other died on October 1, so his name remains on the ballot. If he gets the most votes anyway, then there will be a vacancy in his position.
On October 18, Jim Norman appealed last week’s Florida state court ruling that removed him from the ballot. He won the August Republican primary for State Senate in the 12th district, but a Leon County Circuit Court then said his campaign finance reports are dishonest and disqualified him. See this story. The story also explains that the Republican Party is making plans to choose a new nominee.
UPDATE: see this story, which interviews some voters and reveals that many have already voted and cast a write-in vote for Kevin Ambler. Unfortunately for those voters, those write-ins won’t be counted because Ambler didn’t file a declaration of write-in candidacy by the July deadline (the primary hadn’t even been held yet). Someone ought to sue to overturn the early deadline for filing as a declared write-in candidate. Florida has the nation’s earlest such deadline, by far. In 1979 the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the Florida Constitution protects the right of voters to cast a write-in vote. That case was Smith v Smathers, 372 So.2d 427.
