As most regular readers are aware, on July 10, the Pennsylvania Attorney General indicted a dozen state employees for doing partisan political work on government time, with government computers and other resources. Some of that partisan political work was participating in the challenge to Ralph Nader’s 2004 Pennsylvania petition, and also the challenge to the Green Party’s 2006 petition.

Nader then asked the Pennsylvania Commonwealth to re-open the matter of whether they should each be required to pay approximately $80,000 to the people who challenged their petitions. The justification for the re-opening was that the challengers had acted corruptly. On August 29, Judge Bonnie Leadbetter issued an order, requiring the challengers to Nader’s petition to respond to Nader’s request for a reopening.

The reason Nader has still not paid the $80,000 is that his bank is in the District of Columbia, and the D.C. Superior Court has never agreed to let the 2004 challengers seize Nader’s bank account. The D.C. court hasn’t denied the request either; it simply hasn’t acted. On August 22, Nader’s attorneys notified the D.C. Superior Court of the new activity in the Pennsylvania court.

The Green Party has not asked the Commonwealth Court to re-open the matter of its $80,000 problem for 2006. Instead the Green Party went to the State Supreme Court. There is no response to that request so far.

The Republican Party has chosen an Arizonan for president, and an Alaskan for vice-president. This is the first time a major party has chosen both its presidential and vice-presidential candidates from western states. The Democratic Party has never chosen a westerner for either president, or for vice-president.

The last time the Republican Party chose a ticket with both nominees from the same section of the country was 1976, when it chose midwesterners for both offices (Gerald Ford of Michigan for president, and Bob Dole of Kansas for vice-president).

The Washington Secretary of State’s office is almost finished tallying the results of the August 2008 primary. According to the Secretary’s web page, only 200 ballots remain to be counted. The Secretary of State’s web page also shows that the 2008 turnout was 42.58% of registered voters. That figure might change a miniscule amount when the absolute final tally is finished.

In the last gubernatorial primary in Washington state, in 2004, the Secretary of State’s webpage shows the turnout was 45.14%. In 2004, Washington state used a classic open primary. In 2008, for the first time, Washington used the “top-two” primary. “Top-two” proponents always argued that “top-two” would surely produce a higher turnout than any other type of primary. Secretary of State Sam Reed, who supports “top-two”, had predicted before the August 2008 primary that turnout would be 46%.