The January 4 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer has this letter on the action of Pennsylvania courts requiring Ralph Nader to pay costs to the people who challenged his 2004 petition. Greg Kafoury, who wrote the letter, is an attorney who has supported Nader.
Burlington, the largest city in Vermont, uses partisan elections for its own city officers. The Mayoral election will be March 3, 2009. Incumbent Bob Kiss, of the Progressive Party, plans to run for re-election. See this article, published December 1 by WPTZ, but posted to the Progressive Party’s webpage.
Burlington, the largest city in Vermont, uses partisan elections for its own city officers. The Mayoral election will be March 3, 2009. Incumbent Bob Kiss, of the Progressive Party, plans to run for re-election. See this article, published December 1 by WPTZ, but posted to the Progressive Party’s webpage.
The Conservative Party of New York has been the minor party that runs candidates in the largest share of its state’s legislative seats, compared to any other minor party. This has been true continuously starting in 1970. The Conservatives hit their peak (for number of legislative nominees) in 1982, when the party had nominees on the ballot in over 92% of New York state’s legislative races (195 nominees out of 211 races).
However, there are signs that the Conservative machine is flagging slightly. In 2008, it had nominees in only 149 legislative races (out of 212 races). That was the lowest number it had run since 1964. Meanwhile, the Working Families Party of New York is gaining. In 2008 it ran nominees in 142 legislative races, its best showing so far.
Of course, since these two New York parties mostly cross-endorse Republican or Democratic nominees, the two New York minor parties have an easier time with candidate recruitment than most minor parties do. Still, it is always a sizeable amount of work to place that many nominees on each party’s primary ballot.
According to this article, published January 2 in the World-Herald, 17 of Nebraska’s 49 State Senators desire to bring back the winner-take-all system for choosing Nebraska’s electoral votes. 13 Senators want to keep the existing system. The other 19 Senators did not express a preference.
Nebraska has let each U.S. House district choose its own presidential elector, starting in 1992. In 2008, for the first time, one Nebraska district voted differently than the other districts, so that Barack Obama got one electoral vote, and John McCain got four.
