On October 18, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Simmons v Galvin, 09-920, the Massachusetts case on whether the Voting Rights Act can be used to overturn bans on felons and ex-felons voting.  The decision was not surprising, because the United States Supreme Court had asked the Solicitor General of the United States to express an opinion in this case, and the Solicitor General had then submitted a brief arguing that the Voting Rights Act cannot generally be used for this purpose.

Stateline, a service of the Pew Center on the States, has this report on North Carolina’s use of Instant Runoff Voting this November for a statewide non-partisan judicial race.  The essay, by Josh Goodman, is neutral and balanced, but does suggest that the state has not properly prepared for IRV.  Other sources, not discussed here, have reported that so few voters know in advance about IRV that early voters are not marking their ballots properly.  They assume they are supposed to vote for multiple candidates in the part of the ballot reserved for voters to cast their first choice.  They assume the race is to elect several winners.  This is not surprising, because in the recent past, North Carolina was one of the states in which many state legislators were elected in multi-winner districts.  Thanks to Jack Dean for the link.

The five ballot-listed candidates for Governor of Maine debated each other in Bangor on October 11.  See this story.