On Saturday, October 11, friends and supporters of Frank MacKay held a meeting in Hicksville, New York, and endorsed John McCain for president. Frank MacKay is state chair of the Independence Party of New York, which has already nominated McCain for president.

Organizers of the meeting then put out a press release, saying that the meeting was a national meeting of the Reform Party. The press release said 27 states participated, but the press release did not mention that most of the people participating in the meeting who were not New Yorkers were participating via conference call.

The Reform Party is ballot-qualified in four states. The Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi Reform Parties participated in another national meeting of the Reform Party in Dallas on July 18-20. That meeting nominated Ted Weill for president. The Mississippi Reform Party certified Weill for the ballot. The Louisiana Reform Party attempted to do so, but was thwarted by the same circumstances that also caused the Libertarian and Socialist Parties to fail to get on the ballot for president. The Florida Reform Party decided not to place anyone on the ballot for president. And the Kansas Reform Party nominated Chuck Baldwin for president in June.

None of the ballot-qualified Reform Parties have any connection with the meeting in Hicksville, New York, that endorsed McCain. Nevertheless, the Associated Press naively reported that “The” Reform Party had endorsed McCain. The Associated Press story has a link to www.reformpartyusa-ag.org. That web page is controlled by Jerry Heinemann of West Virginia, who has his own faction of the national Reform Party, the “Reorganized” Reform Party. Heinemann does not support McCain for president. The AP story will probably be corrected soon to link to www.reformpartyusa.org, the webpage controlled by Frank MacKay. The original Reform Party webpage, www.reformparty.org, is controlled by the people who organized the Dallas national convention in July, but their webpage is currently not operating.

The AP story also says “The Reform Party was founded by supporters of Ross Perot’s presidential run in 1992.” That sentence is also misleading; it implies that the party was founded in 1992. The party was founded by Perot himself (he thought of the idea and he thought of the party name) in September 1995.

Here is the 5-page Texas court order from August 2008, saying that the Dallas convention is the actual national convention.

As of late afternoon on October 10, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has not issued a ruling in the case called In re the Substitute Nomination Certificate of Bob Barr as the Libertarian Candidate for President. Barr is on the ballot in Pennsylvania now, and absentee ballots with his name on it have already been mailed. Last month, the Commonwealth Court had kept Barr on the ballot. One presumes that if the Pennsylvania Supreme Court disagrees with the Commonwealth Court, that it would have acted by now. All the briefs have been before that Court since October 2.

The case against Barr depends on the concept that substitution is never supposed to take place unless the stand-in truly expects to be the ultimate nominee, at least originally. But the substitution process in Pennsylvania and other states, as used for minor party and independent presidential campaigns, has always been about putting a stand-in on the petition who knows that he or she is just a stand-in. The stand-in technique is a device to make it possible for a petition to circulate before the party has held its national convention.

The site www.thirdpartyticket.com, as of the morning of October 10, says 9,309 individuals have pledged to donate some amount of money on October 16. As soon as 10,000 individuals have pledged, the plan will swing into operation. The money will be used to pay the expenses of hosting a presidential debate at which every candidate who is on the ballot in states with a majority of the electoral vote will be invited.