The Federal Election Commission still hasn’t published “Federal Elections 2008”, the book of election returns, for President and Congress, from last year’s election. The 2004 edition had been published in May 2005. The 2006 edition had been published in June 2007.
Also, the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives still hasn’t published “Statistics of the Presidential & Congressional Election of November 4, 2008”. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this.
North Carolina is one of 13 states in which state income tax forms ask the taxpayer if the taxpayer wants to make a donation to a particular ballot-qualified party. In eleven of those states, all ballot-qualified parties are listed on the form. But in North Carolina and Ohio, there are extra qualifying rules, and only larger qualified parties are listed on the income tax form.
North Carolina law says only ballot-qualified parties that have registration of at least 1% may be on the state income tax form. No party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, has ever had registration this high in North Carolina. Partly this is because the state revokes all of a party’s registrants when it goes off the ballot and converts them to independents.
However, in late 2008, when the tax returns for 2008 (to be filed in 2009) were being printed, someone in North Carolina government printed the Libertarian Party as a choice on the tax forms anyway, even though the party only had registration of .06%.
The Libertarian Party recently asked if the state would honor the wishes of taxpayers who had indicated on their tax forms that the party should receive a small donation. The state first said, “No”, but then changed its mind when someone found an Attorney General’s Opinion dated June 14, 1999, saying the when the state makes a mistake like this on its state income tax forms, it should honor the taxpayers’ wishes notwithstanding the law. The state says the party will receive a check in early August. Thanks to Barbara Howe for this news.
In a few months New York will fill the expected vacancy in the U.S. House seat, 23rd district. The seat will be vacant because incumbent Republican Congressmember John McHugh has accepted a job in the Executive Department, although he hasn’t resigned yet because he hasn’t been confirmed. On July 24, leaders of the Independence Party decided to support the Republican nominee, Assemblymember Dede Scozzafava, even though Democrats haven’t even chosen their nominee yet. See this Daily News story.
The Conservative Party is expected to run someone other than Scozzafava.
The Green Party is holding a national meeting in Durham, North Carolina, July 23-27. See this article in the Durham Herald-Sun about the meeting.
A referendum petition in Washington state concerning the Electoral College gathered only 300 signatures by the deadline. The purpose of this particular Referendum, R-70, had been to cancel the National Popular Vote Plan bill that the legislature had passed earlier this year. The signatures are due on Saturday, July 25, for all Washington state referendums. They each need 120,577 valid signatures.
