The Philadelphia Inquirer of January 28 has this op-ed by Ralph Nader, on Pennsylvania’s unique system of charging candidates who fail to get on the ballot with the costs associated with checking their petitions. Thanks to Oliver Hall for the link.
Earlier it was reported here that North Carolina Senator Jim Jacumin planned to introduce a bill, lowering the number of signatures for independent candidates. Senator Jacumin now plans to expand the bill so that it also lowers the number of signatures for minor parties. Furthermore, the bill will delete the requirement that declared write-in candidates must submit a petition of 500 signatures. North Carolina is the only state that requires declared write-in candidates to submit any petition. The logic for a petition to be a qualified write-in candidate is faulty. Petitions exist to keep ballots from being crowded with too many names, but write-in candidates’ names do not get printed on ballots, so they don’t make ballots too lengthy.
Last year, five individuals filed to run for the Florida legislature in the Green Party primary. None of the five were known to leaders of the Green Party, and all of the five seemed to avoid any attempts to communicate with them by the press and by Green Party leaders. The suspicion was that the five had been recruited by Republican Party activists to enter particular races that were perceived as close. As it turned out, none of the five nominees tipped the outcome; the winner in all five legislative races received an absolute majority. Later, the state chair of the Green Party sued one of the candidates who appeared unable to pay the rather large filing fee, to find out who had paid that fee. The case has a hearing on February 19 in state court in Pasco County. King v Roman, 51-2008-ca-8091-ws.
The Buffalo News ran a feature story on January 20 that consists of an interview with Barbara Nelson, who now lives in Kenmore, New York, near Buffalo. She lived in Honolulu in 1961 and remembers hearing about Barack Obama’s birth in the Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women and Children. She was friends with a retired obstetrician who relayed the story that a woman whose first name was Stanley had just given birth to a child with a wonderfully musical name. Here is the story. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link. In another interview after the story was published, Nelson said the Buffalo News had misquoted her when it said she said that her friend the obstetrician had himself delivered baby Obama. He was aware of the birth but he was not the doctor who delivered the baby.
The Buffalo News ran a feature story on January 20 that consists of an interview with Barbara Nelson, who now lives in Kenmore, New York, near Buffalo. She lived in Honolulu in 1961 and remembers hearing about Barack Obama’s birth in the Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women and Children. She was friends with a retired obstetrician who relayed the story that a woman whose first name was Stanley had just given birth to a child with a wonderfully musical name. Here is the story. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link. In another interview after the story was published, Nelson said the Buffalo News had misquoted her when it said she said that her friend the obstetrician had himself delivered baby Obama. He was aware of the birth but he was not the doctor who delivered the baby.
