On July 14, the California Secretary of State, in a press release, noted that for the first time ever, over half the voters who voted in the recent primary cast their votes by mail. Specifically, 58.7% of all voters who voted, voted by mail. California is the third state to have experienced this phenomenon. All votes in Oregon are now cast by mail, and in Washington state in recent elections, the overwhelming majority of votes have been cast by mail.
On July 14, the California Secretary of State released the official totals from the June 3 primary, including all write-in totals. In the 15th State Senate district, no Democrat was on the ballot. Dennis Morris, a Democratic attorney in Pismo Beach, had filed as a write-in for the Democratic primary when he learned that no other Democrat was running. He polled 2,096 write-ins. The Republican incumbent, Senator Abel Maldonado, had also filed to have his write-ins counted in the Democratic primary, but Maldonado only received 533 write-ins.
Under California Election Code section 8605, no one may receive the nomination of a party by write-in votes, unless he or she receives a number of write-ins equal to 1% of the vote for that office in the last general election. So, even though Morris’ write-in total is very impressive, he cannot be considered nominated; he needed 3,689 write-ins to meet that standard. Since the California Constitution, since 2004, has said, “A political party shall not be denied the ability to place on the general election ballot the candidate who received, at the primary election, the highest vote among that party’s candidates”, Morris intends to bring a lawsuit, alleging that sec. 8605 violates the California Constitution.
IndependentPoliticalReport has posted Cynthia McKinney’s acceptance speech, delivered in Chicago on July 12. See this link. C-SPAN broadcast it twice on Sunday, July 13.
IndependentPoliticalReport has posted Cynthia McKinney’s acceptance speech, delivered in Chicago on July 12. See this link. C-SPAN broadcast it twice on Sunday, July 13.
On July 10, the Connecticut Working Families nominated candidates in all five of the state’s U.S. House districts. In each case, the WFP nominated the person who is expected to also be the Democratic nominee. The party is already ballot-qualified in one of the U.S. House districts, and is petitioning in the other four districts.
This will be the first time the Working Families Party will have been on the ballot throughout the entire state of Connecticut. Starting in 2004, the party started running in certain legislative districts and in a single U.S. House district. Due to a change in the law made in 2007, it is now generally possible for a new party to participate in fusion. Legally speaking, the Working Families Party is “new” in some parts of Connecticut, whereas it is already established in other parts.
It is possible that the WFP of Connecticut will also nominate Barack Obama for president. If that happens, the party would immediately begin to circulate a petition for itself for presidential ballot status, which takes 7,500 valid signatures. The WFP will not act until Obama agrees to accept the nomination. President is the only statewide office on the Connecticut ballot in 2006; there is no U.S. Senate race this year.
