On August 30, Japan held an election for all 480 seats in the lower legislative body. The winning party, the Democratic Party of Japan, has won at least 270 seats and may have won 300, ousting the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Ironically, the winning party would have won even more seats, except that it didn’t run a full slate of candidates. See this story. Thanks to Rick Kissell for the link.
On August 30, Japan held an election for all 480 seats in the lower legislative body. The winning party, the Democratic Party of Japan, has won at least 270 seats and may have won 300, ousting the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Ironically, the winning party would have won even more seats, except that it didn’t run a full slate of candidates. See this story. Thanks to Rick Kissell for the link.
According to this story, the planned 3-candidate New Jersey gubernatorial debates are on shaky ground. The law requires candidates who receive public funding to participate, but Democratic nominee Jon Corzine, the incumbent, has not asked for public funding. Corzine has not said he won’t participate. However, the director of the state agency that sponsors the debates has asked that the first debate be postponed from October 1 to October 22. Republican nominee Christopher Christie, and the independent who has been invited into the debates, Chris Daggett, believe that the Governor is behind the request to postpone the debate, and they are opposed to postponement.
This year, the Washington state legislature passed a bill providing for domestic partners. Opponents of the idea then collected signatures on a referendum petition to ask the voters if they wish to reject the new law.
Already, the petition drive had brought about one lawsuit, over whether the names of people who signed the petition should be made known to the public, or kept secret. Proponents of the petition filed that case, which has a hearing in federal court next week.
On August 27, another lawsuit was filed by opponents of the petition, alleging that the Secretary of State is approving signatures on the petition that should be rejected. The petition-checking process is still proceeding, and the results (to be announced next week) are expected to be very close. See this story.
The bill moving through Congress to fund the military has an amendment that requires states to postally mail ballots to overseas absentee voters no later than 45 days before the general election. This New York Times story says that New York state officials believe that if the bill passes, the state will be forced to move its primary (for office other than president) from September, to an earlier month. About a dozen other states also have September primaries, and what is true for New York will probably be true for them as well.
