Filing for 2009 Washington city and county elections closed on June 5. The primary is in August. One incumbent city coucilmember, Janet Way, will probably not appear on the August ballot because she tried to file for re-election online, and had computer problems. See this story. Thanks to Chris Roberts for the link.

The newspaper story says that although on-line filing closed at 4 p.m., the King County Elections Department would have let her file in-person as late as 4:30 p.m. However, that would have meant a trip in rush-hour traffic from her home in Shoreline, to downtown Seattle. Shoreline is 15 miles north of Seattle.

John Hospers, first Libertarian Party presidential candidate, turned 91 on June 9, 2009. Other presidential candidates in the general election who lived at least that long include Strom Thurmond (100), Ronald Reagan (93), Gerald Ford (93), Frank Zeidler (93), Darlington Hoopes (93), Roger Babson (91), Claude Watson (92). Thanks to Darcy Richardson for that list, which may be incomplete. UPDATE: Darcy also notes Benjamin Spock lived to be 94, Barry Commoner is still living and is 92, and Enoch Holtwick lived to 91.

Hospers is somewhat famous for having received one electoral vote from Virginia, in 1972. He and George Wallace are the only actual minor party or independent presidential candidates who have received an electoral vote in the last 60 years. U.S. Senator Harry Byrd also received electoral votes, but he was never an announced candidate for president, even though his name appeared on the ballot in a few states in 1956 (Byrd got his electoral votes in 1960).

Zeidler and Hoopes were Socialist Party presidential nominees; Babson, Holtwick and Watson were Prohibition Party presidential nominees. Spock was the Peoples Party nominee in 1972 and Commoner the Citizens Party nominee in 1980.

On June 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, ruled that Ralph Nader’s lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee for its work to keep him off the ballot in 2004 should have been filed earlier than October 2007. Here is the 19-page opinion. It concludes by saying, “Whatever the Democrats tried to conceal, Nader’s own complaint reveals his constructive knowledge of ‘some evidence of wrongdoing’ by each current defendant more than three years before he filed his suit. Because Nader’s complaint is thus untimely on its face, we affirm on this limitations ground without addressing the district court’s decision or the ultimate merits of Nader’s theory of the case.”