On August 31, Free & Equal posted a specific condemnation of how New York state petition challenge procedures are keeping an unusually large number of Libertarian, Green, and independent candidates off the ballot in city and county elections this year.
On September 1, Free & Equal sent the contents of that post, in the form of a press release, to over 1,000 media outlets in New York state.
On September 1, the Northern Mariana Islands Election Commission voted to change the ballot format in future elections (including this year’s gubernatorial election) from a party column format, to an office-group format. See this story.
The party column format promulgated a few weeks ago put the Republican column and the Covenant Party column on the front side of the ballot. The Democratic Party column, and independent columns, were on the back of the ballot. That lead to a protest, which caused the Commission to reverse itself.
The August 31 issue of Targum, daily newspaper of Rutgers University in New Jersey, has this interview with Chris Daggett, the independent gubernatorial candidate who has received public funding and an invitation into this year’s gubernatorial debates.
On August 31, the office of Washington’s Secretary of State said that Referendum-71 had at least 1,000 more valid signatures than were needed. UPDATE: the state court weighing the challenge to this petition will issue its ruling on Wednesday morning, Sep. 2. See this story. The Referendum was filed to block a law passed by the legislature, to let same-sex couples have the same legal rights that married couples have. The referendum petition campaign has created two different lawsuits. One, in federal court, is over whether the names of petition signers should be public. The other, in lower state court, questions whether certain signatures should have been disallowed.
According to this story, the 3-candidate gubernatorial debates in New Jersey will occur on the original schedule. The first one will be attended by all three candidates, and will be October 1.
