The October 27 issue of The New Yorker magazine has this feature article about Bob Barr and his presidential campaign.

On October 20, a lower state court ruled that the Vermont Secretary of State was following the law when she disallowed the Green Party’s status as a qualified minor party, back in January 2008. The consequence is that Cynthia McKinney will not be on the ballot, and voters who wish to vote her will need to cast a write-in vote. Vermont does not require write-in candidates to file a declaration of write-in candidacy. However, Vermont has a bad record when it comes to tallying write-ins for president and making the tally part of its official state election returns. For example, in 2004, the Vermont Secretary of State refused to provide a tally of write-ins for David Cobb (Green Party presidential candidate) and Michael Peroutka (Constitution Party presidential candidate). Maybe this year she will handle presidential write-ins better.

The lawsuit is Hill v Markowitz, Washington County Superior Court, 640-9-08.

On October 10, Rasmussen Reports released a Vermont gubernatorial poll, showing Republican Jim Douglas at 45%, independent Anthony Pollina 25%, Democrat Gaye Symington 20%, other and undecided 10%. However, the poll also seemed to suggest that if voters get the idea that if Symington has a better chance to win than Pollina, that Pollina’s support would drop to 4%; whereas if voters feel that Pollina has a better chance than Symington, that 19% would still stick with Symington. See here. In Vermont, if no one gets 50% for Governor, the legislature chooses the next governor. Vermont has a Democratic majority in both houses of the legislature currently, and that is not expected to change.