On October 17, the same state court judge who had told Prescott, Arizona, not to hold the November 3, 2009 election for city council, refused to stay his own ruling. Consequently, the city will not mail out any more ballots while it prepares to appeal to the State Court of Appeals. The earlier ruling had delayed the election because the city had omitted to print the name of one candidate on the ballot. See this story.

For an explanation of why the city had not printed the name of one candidate on the ballot, see the earlier post here.

See freeandequal.org to watch the hour-long CATO event on October 13 on ballot access. Speaking are Professor James Bennett, and Theresa Amato, each of whom has published a book this year on ballot access laws, and related topics. Also speaking is Hans Von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commissioner. The questions from the audience at the end, and the responses of the panelists, are especially interesting.

On October 16, a U.S. District Court in Virginia ordered the State Board of Elections to count some overseas absentee ballots that have not yet been counted, from the November 2008 election. The court said that even though these ballots arrived too late to be counted under Virginia law, the state was at fault for not mailing them soon enough. See this story. The case is McCain-Palin 2008 v Cunningham, e.d., 3:08-cv-709.

Once these ballots have been counted, the official tally for the various presidential candidates from last year’s election will rise somewhat.