This New York Post story of October 30 says that Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York city and former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has called on New Jersey independent gubernatorial candidate Chris Daggett to withdraw from the race, to enhance the prospects of the Republican nominee for Governor of New Jersey in next week’s election.
According to this story in the October 30 Oakland Tribune, the Alameda County (California) Elections Department says the vote-counting machines used in that county can handle Instant Runoff Voting. Alameda County is waiting for the Secretary of State to certify those machines. Because the voters of Oakland voted to use IRV back in 2006, as soon as the vote-counting equipment is ready, it seems likely that the city will use IRV in the city elections in 2010.
One prominent candidate for Mayor of Oakland, Don Perata, seems to fear that the voters aren’t ready for IRV, and he says the city must not move too quickly. This seems unconvincing, as it will have been four years since the voters voted for that system.
Oakland is the third most populous city in the Bay Area, after San Jose and San Francisco.
This story analyzes how states with September primaries for Congress are reacting to the new federal law that requires states to mail foreign absentee ballots no later than 45 days before any federal election.
This week, two California initiatives entered circulation that would potentially affect how elections and legislative government would work in California’s future. One provides that the voters themselves, by initiative petition, could call a state Constitutional Convention. The other provides for a part-time legislature. Each needs 694,354 valid signatures, since they each are themselves proposed constitutional amendments.
On October 29, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter dismissed Barnett v Obama, the case that had been filed on January 20, 2009, alleging that President Barack Obama does not meet the constitutional qualifications to be President. The decision is 30 pages and can be seen here.
Judge Carter ruled that the non-candidate plaintiffs, which included various military personnel and a few state legislators, do not have standing. He was hesitant to rule that Alan Keyes lacks standing, because Keyes did run against Obama in the presidential election of November 2008. On the other hand, the judge emphasized that Keyes’ showing was so weak, that he could not possibly have been elected; he was only on the ballot in three states. The decision says, “It does seem highly unlikely that the replacement of President Obama with another Democratic nominee such as Hillary Clinton would have resulted in a victory for Plaintiffs Keyes, Drake of the American Independent Party.” But, the decision says, “The Court is troubled by the idea that a third party candidate would not have standing to challenge a major party candidate’s qualifications.”
The decision then decides not to decide the question of whether Keyes had standing, and instead rules that even if Keyes does have standing, his suit must fail because it was not filed until after Obama was sworn into office (the judge notes that the case was filed at 3:26 pm Pacific time, January 20, 2009). The decision then says that the power to remove a sitting president from office resides with Congress, not the Judicial Branch. The decision says, “There may very well be a legitimate role for the judiciary to interpret whether the natural born citizen requirement has been satisfied in the case of a presidential candidate who has not already won the election and taken office. However, on the day that President Obama took the presidential oath and was sworn in, he became President of the United States.”
