Normally, pollsters in the United States make cavalier decisions about which candidates to include, and which not to include, and they never get criticized for that behavior. In a rare event, Nate Silver criticizes Rasmussen Polls for omitting Rick Lazio from the latest Rasmussen Poll, in the New York gubernatorial race. See this story.
On September 17, the 2nd circuit New York’s restrictive rules that make it difficult for voters to change parties. The 7-page decision is Van Allen v Cuomo, 07-3118-cv. New York lets previously unregistered voters make a last-minute decision to register to vote and to enroll in a party. But if someone has already been a registered voter, and switches parties (or switches from being an independent voter to a member of a party), the change can’t go into effect until next year.
The decision was no surprise, because the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the same restriction in 1973. The ostensible reason for the time restriction is to protect political parties against “raiding”, i.e., the insincere behavior of voters who want to join a party so as to vote in its primary, even though that voter isn’t loyal to that party. If a political party in New York were to join as a co-plaintiff in a future case on this subject, and that party were to indicate that it welcomes voters into the party, without the long time lag, that would change the legal outcome.
On September 20, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer denied the request by U.S. Senator Roland Burris to alter the special election for U.S. Senate in Illinois. The U.S. District Court Judge had earlier ruled that the special election ballot for the two-month term should list only the same candidates who are running for the regular term. Burris, the incumbent U.S. Senator, wanted to either run in the special election, or block the special election.
Here is Justice Breyer’s one-page order. The U.S. Supreme Court has not determined whether to grant cert in the Burris appeal. Today’s action is merely a denial of injunctive relief. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
On September 20, Herb Lux, an independent candidate for U.S. House in Virginia, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to order the Virginia State Board of Elections to check his petition for validity. The Board has refused to do so, saying even if he has 1,000 otherwise valid signatures, most of his signatures are invalid because most of them were collected by Lux himself, who doesn’t live in the district he is running in. The U.S. District Court upheld the residency requirement, and the 4th circuit refused to order the Board to check the petition. Here is the application to the U.S. Supreme Court. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.
Even though Rick Lazio lost the New York Republican primary for Governor, he is inclined to continue his candidacy as the Conservative Party nominee, according to this story. A formal announcement is expected within 24 hours. The last time the Conservative Party and the Republican Party each had separate nominees for Governor was 1990. That year, the Conservative nominee, Herb London, polled 20.40% of the total vote.
Assuming the story is accurate, that will make at least five states in which a former or current Republican Governor or member of Congress is running for statewide office this year as a minor party candidate, or an independent candidate, or a write-in candidate. The others are Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, Tom Tancredo in Colorado, Charlie Crist in Florida, and Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island. Lazio was a Republican member of Congress 1993-2001.
