On October 3, the West Virginia Sierra Club endorsed Jesse Johnson for Governor of West Virginia. He is the Mountain Party nominee. The Mountain Party is West Virginia’s Green Party affiliate. As far as is known, the Sierra Club has never before endorsed any minor party nominee for an important office, anywhere in the U.S.
On October 17, an Arkansas Circuit Court ruled against Dwayne Dobbins, who is trying to get on the ballot for State Representative, 39th district. Dobbins had won the Democratic primary for that office in May, but in July the Democratic Party had refused to accept his nomination, leaving the Democratic Party with no nominee on the ballot in November. Judge Chris Piazza said he would have enjoyed getting into the merits of the case, but that Dobbins filed the case too late. Dobbins had filed the case on October 10. Dobbins will now ask the Arkansas Supreme Court for relief.
The only candidate now on the ballot in November for the 39th state rep district is Richard Carroll, the Green Party nominee.
The Democratic Party had rejected Dobbins because he had earlier resigned from the legislature as part of a plea bargain. His wife had then taken his seat. But in 2008, his wife had surprised everyone by not filing for re-election; instead Dobbins had filed for the seat at the last minute. He was the only person on the ballot in the May Democratic primary, and Arkansas does not permit write-ins in primaries.
New York state has the worst general election ballot design of any state. This is because New York still uses mechanical voting machines, combined with a party column or party row format. Since the machines have only 9 rows (or 9 columns, depending on which type of machine is used), elections officials are sometimes forced to place two different political parties in the same column or row. The October 14 issue of The Journal News of White Plains, New York, features this story, about how the Open Government Party of Sloatsburg, New York (a village in Rockland County) is sharing the same row with the Socialist Workers Party candidate for president.
Political Science Professor Michael McDonald of Virginia has created this webpage to track how many people have voted early in each state. So far he only has data for four states, but that will change as more and more states begin the process.
Ralph Nader plans his own “Boston Marathon” on Saturday, October 25, in Massachusetts. He will make 26 campaign appearances (marathons are 26 miles long) in one day, from sunup until midnight, when he will end the day at the famous Alice’s Restaurant. The exact schedule hasn’t been set up yet.
