Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson, a Democrat from Boston, was defeated in the September 16 primary by 213 votes. The vote in the primary was Sonia Chang-Diaz 9,071; Wilkerson 8,858. Now Wilkerson is attempting to retain her seat by running as a write-in candidate in November against Chang-Diaz. There is no Republican in the race, but the Socialist Workers Party has a candidate on the ballot in this race, William Leonard.

Both Wilkerson and Chang-Diaz know quite a bit about running write-in campaigns, since they were both write-in candidates in the 2006 Democratic primary for that same seat. In the Democratic primary in 2006, no one had appeared on the ballot, and everyone was a write-in candidate. In that 2006 primary, Wilkerson had 6,478 write-ins, and her closest competitor, Chang-Diaz, had 5,711 write-ins.

On Friday, October 24, a U.S. District Court in Philadelphia released its opinion in Berg v Obama, civ 08-4083. Plaintiff Philip Berg had filed the lawsuit in August 2008, alleging that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen. The decision is here. It is 34 pages, but only deals with whether Berg has standing. The decision says he does not have standing. BAN regrets the Friday posting saying that the decision had made a finding about the factual dispute.

On October 19, the Daily Oklahoman newspaper carried this story, which says that, according to E. Z. Million (an independent candidate in 2006 for Lieutenant Governor), the Democratic and Republican Party state chairmen do not oppose easing presidential ballot access. Thanks to Richard Prawdzienski for the link.