On August 17, Wyoming held its primaries.  No one filed to run for Teton County Attorney in the Democratic primary.  However, 109 Democrats cast a write-in vote for Greg Blenkinsop for that office, so he is the party’s nominee.  See this story.

Wyoming is not one of the 35 states that require a write-in candidate to file a declaration of write-in candidacy in advance of any primary or general election, as a condition of counting write-ins for that candidate.  Wyoming law requires a write-in candidate to receive at least 25 write-ins in a primary in order to be nominated.  If the election returns show that anyone received that many write-in votes in a primary, and outpolled any other candidate for the nomination, then elections officials contact the individual and ask whether he or she wants the nomination.  In this case Blenkinsop accepted the nomination, even though he had not initiated the write-in campaign.  Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

On August 19, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott declined to grant injunctive relief to the Ohio Democratic Party, in the lawsuit over whether Ohio is constitutionally required to print party labels on general election ballots for judicial candidates.  Ohio provides that candidates for Judge are selected in partisan primaries.  But Ohio law also says that these party nominees are placed on the November ballot with no party label.  The case is Ohio Council 8 American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees v Brunner (the Democratic Party is a co-plaintiff), 1:10-cv-504, southern district.  See this story.  Here is the 18-page order.  Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.

One reason for the denial of injunctive relief was that the case had been filed too late.

On August 19, an Insider/Advantage/WSB-TV poll was released for the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races in Georgia.  For U.S. Senate, the poll shows:  Republican Johnny Isakson 47%; Democrat Michael Thurmond 35%; Libertarian Chuck Donovan 7%; undecided 11%.

For Governor, the same poll shows:  Republican Nathan Deal 45%; Democrat Roy Barnes 41%; Libertarian John Monds 5%; undecided 9%.

In the entire history of popular elections for U.S. Senate in Georgia, only one candidate for that office who was not the Republican nominee nor the Democratic nominee has ever received more than 5% of the vote.  That was in 1920.  An independent candidate that year, Harry Edwards, polled 5.10%.  Edwards was the only opponent of the Democratic nominee, Thomas Watson.

The best Libertarian Party showing for U.S. Senate in Georgia was in 1996, when Jack Cashin polled 3.60%.