The ballot-qualified Peace and Freedom Party of California holds its state convention in Sacramento on August 2-3. The meeting will choose the party’s presidential nominee. Since it is so difficult for an independent to get on the California ballot, the PFP nomination is of great value. Ralph Nader, Gloria La Riva (Party for Socialism and Liberation nominee), and Brian Moore (Socialist Party nominee) would all be greatly advantaged if they could receive the PFP nomination.

The winning nominee must receive a majority of the vote at the convention. Delegates are the members of the state central committee. County central committee members are automatically members of the state central committee. They were elected at the June 3 primary. Not all the absentee or provisional ballots have been counted yet, and some counties haven’t counted write-in votes. Some of the contested races for PFP county central committee are still extremely close; sometimes one vote separates winners from losers.

Several California counties made election administration errors at the June 3 primary. The worst was in Alameda County, where some PFP members were told that they could only vote a non-partisan ballot. Also in Los Angeles County, in some districts the PFP primary ballot was two ballot cards, but some PFP voters were only given one of the two cards. Thanks to Bob Richard for that news. Here is an article from the Daily Planet of June 16 about the Alameda County problem.

Oregon held its primaries on May 20, 2008. No one ran in the Republican primary for Attorney General. Under Oregon election law, when no one appears on the ballot in a partisan primary, elections officials must tally all write-ins (Oregon has no law requiring write-in candidates to file a write-in declaration of candidacy). Multnomah County, which includes Portland, has posted the list of write-ins on its web page. See it here. The list includes almost 900 individuals who got at least one write-in, and goes on for 18 pages. Thanks to ElectionUpdates for the link.

The Texas Libertarian Party will have 12 State Senate nominees, and 86 State House nominees, for a total of 98 legislative nominees. This is the highest number of legislative nominees that any minor party has run for the Texas legislature in 90 years. In 2006 the Texas Libertarian Party had almost as many (97). Texas elects 165 or 166 state legislators each election year (half the State Senate, and the entire House).