On August 3, the founder of the California Moderate Party, Ash Roughani, announced that the party will not attempt to qualify for the 2010 ballot, although suggesting that it might make the attempt for 2012.
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On August 4, the Moderate Party submitted its petition to become a qualified party. See this story. The party turned in almost 34,000 signatures, to meet a requirement of 23,589. Assuming the petition is valid, this will be the first time any group has become a qualified party in Rhode Island via the petition method. The petition procedure to create a new party has only existed since 1994.
In the past, groups became qualified parties by the alternate method of running a candidate for Governor or President under the independent procedures, using a party label, and if that candidate polled 5%, the group became a qualified party. This is the method used by the Green Party (Ralph Nader polled over 5% in 2000), which enjoyed qualified status through the 2004 election.
On Monday, August 3, Delaware held a special election to fill the vacant State Senate seat, 19th district. The results: Republican 63.0%, Democratic 30.3%, Independent Party 5.9%, Libertarian .8%.
When this State Senate seat had last been up, in 2006, the Republicans hadn’t even run anyone. The results in 2006 had been: Democratic 78.3%, Independent Party 21.7%. In 2002 the results had been: Democratic 63.6%; Republican 36.4%.
On August 3, Fairvote Blog published this review of Theresa Amato’s book, “Grand Illusion: the Myth of Voter Choice in a 2-Party Tyranny.”
On August 3, Fairvote Blog published this review of Theresa Amato’s book, “Grand Illusion: the Myth of Voter Choice in a 2-Party Tyranny.”