CNN on October 2 ran a short segment titled, “Time Ripe for Third Party?”, triggered by media interest in Rick Nagin’s run-off for a city council set in Cleveland. Nagin associates himself with the Democratic Party but is also a member of the Communist Party and a reporter for the party’s newspaper. The election is November 3, 2009. The segment also features Bob Barr, and refers to strong independent gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Thanks to Jared Cowing for the link.

On October 2, a New York State Supreme Court in Rensselaer County invalidated 33 absentee votes cast in the Working Families Party primary of September 15, 2009. See this story. The case is Lambertsen v Bugbee, 230629. The Working Families Party primary was a battle between some Republican candidates versus some Democratic candidates, for County Legislature and Troy City Council. There were no WFP members running in that primary. The 33 absentee ballots were found fraudulent, filed in the names of voters who never received the ballots (and in most cases, had not even requested absentee ballots).

It appears that one or two Democratic Party partisans are responsible for the fraud, but no criminal charges have been filed yet against anyone.