On September 30, a 3-judge U.S. District Court in Texas issued a ruling, saying the judges will prepare an interim map of U.S. House districts for Texas, just in case the map prepared by the legislature this year is held to violate the federal Voting Rights Act. The decision as to whether the legislature’s districts violate the Voting Rights Act or not is before a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. See this story.

Texas could have asked the U.S. Justice Department to preclear the maps the legislature drew this year, but Texas decided to bypass the Justice Department and go straight to a U.S. District court in Washington, D.C. The problem with that choice is that the district court in Washington, D.C., may not act in time. Texas has a March primary for all federal and state offices.

Thanks to a helpful commenter to an earlier blog post, here is a picture of the New York ballot for U.S. House, in the special election of September 13 in the 9th district. The image is very fuzzy, but it possible to see that the two major party nominees were in the top line on the ballot (each with multiple party lines). Then, all by himself in a lower part of the ballot is the third candidate in the race, Chris Hoeppner, nominee of the Socialist Workers Party. The design suggests that Hoeppner wasn’t necessarily a candidate in the same race. Of course an aware voter would understand that he was, but the ballot design gives an unclear impression about that.

According to this article, the Working Families Party will assist in enlarging the ongoing protest on Wall Street.