On October 14, a U.S. District Court in Nashville ruled in favor of the Tennessee Democratic Party, and against State Senator Rosalind Kurita, in Kurita’s ballot access lawsuit. She says she will appeal to the 6th circuit. She had won the August Democratic primary but the Tennessee Democratic Party certified someone else to be the Democratic nominee. The case is Kurita v The State Primary Board of the Tennessee Democratic Party, 3:08cv-948. The decision is 41 pages. It depends on the U.S. Supreme Court decisions that give substantial autonomy on political parties to run their own affairs (see pages 10-17). It also depends on the Tennessee statutory scheme, which does seem to give political parties a great deal of authority to settle primary election vote-counting disputes (although in this case, everyone agrees that Kurita won the primary, by the narrow margin of 19 votes).

Scholastic Magazine has been conducting a mock presidential election for its readers (children in grades one through twelve) since 1940. The poll this year closed on October 10. Approximately 250,000 ballots were cast. Apparently the ballot this year only named Barack Obama and John McCain, but a write-in line was provided.

The results: Obama 57%, McCain 39%, write-ins 4%. Scholastic did not give any information about write-ins, except to say eleven percent of the write-ins were for Hillary Clinton. Scholastic did say this is the highest percentage of write-ins ever recorded in any of its presidential elections.

The October 14 New York Times has this article, showing where the Commission on Presidential Debates gets its funding.