The Democratic, Republican, and Green Party nominees will debate each other at Southern Illinois University on the evening of October 14. See this story. This is believed to be the first time that the major party nominees for Governor of Illinois have ever debated a minor party nominee on television.
On October 12, Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, held a Mayoral election. Green Party nominee Celia Wade Brown was elected, defeating a four-term incumbent. See this story. The story says that the incumbent had the most first choice votes. But Wellington uses Instant Runoff Voting, and that changed the result. Thanks to Mike Feinstein for the link.
A three-day trial in Republican Party of Idaho v Ysursa opened in U.S. District Court in Boise on October 13. Here is a newspaper story about the first day, although it isn’t very detailed. One of the witnesses in favor of the Republican Party, Dennis Mansfield, has a blog and is blogging about the trial, although his blog has completely unrelated entries interspersed. See dennismansfield.com. UPDATE: see this newspaper story about the Republican Party’s evidence, presented on October 13.
Kentucky has the easiest petition requirement of any state, for candidates running in party primaries. They only need 2 valid signatures, plus a filing fee. On October 13, a lower state court declared that the Republican nominee in the 44th state house district, Gail Powers, only submitted one valid signature. The other signature she submitted is from a registered voter who lives outside the 44th district. See this story.
The story also says that the Democratic nominee for state house, 37th district, is also being challenged for the same reason. It is too late for these candidates’ names to be removed from the ballot, but if a candidate is determined to have failed to submit a valid petition, votes for that person will not be counted. Kentucky permits write-ins in the general election, if the write-in candidate files a declaration of write-in candidacy by October 22. But it would be difficult for anyone to be a write-in candidate if that person’s name were printed on the ballot. It would be difficult to explain to voters that they should ignore the name of the candidate that is printed on the ballot, yet that same voter should cast a write-in vote for that candidate.
The filing fee to run for the legislature is $200.
An Arkansas gubernatorial debate was aired on October 12. All three candidates participated: Democrat Mike Beebe, Republican Jim Keet, and Green Party nominee Jim Lendall. See this story. This is the first time Arkansas major party nominees for Governor have participated in a televised debate with a minor party nominee.
