On October 15, U.S. District Court Judge Red Rakoff refused to issue an injunction in Conservative Party & Working Families Party v New York State Board of Elections, 10 Civ. 6923, eastern district.  This is the case in which those two parties complained that when a voter votes for the same candidate twice, once on each line, the machines are programmed to count only the vote for the party listed first on the ballot.  See the judge’s 5-page order here.  The plaintiffs want the machines programmed so that such a vote would be considered an overvote, and then the voter would be instantly notified of the overvote and asked to cast a new ballot.

For example, Andrew Cuomo is listed on the ballot three times as a candidate for Governor.  He is listed as the Democratic nominee, the Independence Party nominee, and the Working Families nominee.  Some voters will undoubtedly vote for him on all three lines.  The Board of Elections will count that as one vote on the Democratic line.

The basis for the denial is that the plaintiffs filed the case too late.  The order says “Plaintiffs (the political parties) have set forth substantial arguments in favor of their underlying complaint” but they “have slept on their rights and cannot at this late date seek the kind of onerous and potentially confusing relief envisioned..plaintiffs waited until six weeks before the election to file their complaint… the Court will not invoke the extraordinary remedy of a preliminary injunction at this time.”  The judge also refused at this time to order elections officials to post signs in each polling place, warning voters not to double vote.  He said the plaintiffs have not yet even furnished a sample of what the signs should say.  UPDATE:  plaintiffs did submit proposed wording for signs in polling places.  They proposed “Do not vote for a candidate more than twice.  If you wish to vote for a candidate who appears on more than one party line, then you should vote for the candidate on the party line you wish to support.  If you vote for a candidate on more than one party line, then the candidate will receive credit for the vote, but the vote will automatically be credited to the first party listed on the ballot, and no other party will receive credit for the vote.”

This issue was not a problem in New York state in the past, because in the past almost all voters voted on mechanical voting machines, which mechanically made it impossible for voters to cast double-votes or triple-votes for the same candidate for the same office.  But this year, those machines are gone, and paper ballots are being used.  Thanks to Kimberly Wilder and IndependentPoliticalReport for this news.

Jack Betts, veteran political columnist for the Charlotte, North Carolina, Observer, has this commentary about the most recent U.S. Senate debate in North Carolina.  The most recent debate included all three candidates, including Libertarian Mike Beitler.  Betts says the debate was better than the earlier one, which had excluded Beitler.

Oaklandnorth.net, a news project of the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, has this interview with Laura Wells.  Wells was arrested at the October 12 California gubernatorial debate in San Rafael.  She wasn’t trying to participate in the debate; she was merely trying to sit in the audience.  She was given a ticket.  The incident is somewhat reminiscent of Ralph Nader’s experience, trying to be in the audience in a presidential debate in 2000.  However, Nader was not arrested, and later the Commission on Presidential Debates sent him a written apology for having barred him from the audience.  UPDATE:  see this KCRA-TV video of the arrest.

Six of the seven most populous states have minor party or independent candidates on the ballot this year.  Of those six states, major party nominees for U.S. Senate, or Governor, or both, have debated at least some of their minor party or independent opponents, in all six states except California.  For some reason, major party nominees in California this year are uniquely hostile to the idea of inclusive debates.  California last had an inclusive general election debate for Governor in 2003, when Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom McClintock, Cruz Bustamante, Peter Camejo, and Arianna Huffington debated each other.

On October 13, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group in California hosted a debate for the Democratic and Republican nominees for Secretary of State, and did not even announce objective criteria on how they made the decision on whom to invite.  Furthermore, the debate was held in a room that was closed to the public.  The Silicon Valley Leadership Group did not even inform the other four ballot-listed candidates that the debate was to occur.  The Silicon Valley Leadership Group was a primary backer of California’s Proposition 14 in June, which will go into effect in 2012 and will have the impact of confining California’s November ballot to only Democrats and Republicans.