On March 7, the U.S. District Court in Virginia that had jurisdiction over Ralph Nader’s lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee (stemming from events in 2004) transferred the case to U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. The case is now before U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina, a Clinton appointee.
On March 11, Indiana held a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 7th district. With 82% counted, the results are: Democratic 53.23%; Republican 43.83%; Libertarian 2.93%.
When this same seat last voted, in November 2006, the results were: Democratic 53.76%; Republican 46.24%.
Here is a link to the CNN election returns page for the Mississippi primaries. Even though only a small share of the vote has been counted, CNN has projected a win for Barack Obama in the Democratic primary, and a win for John McCain in the Republican primary.
Pennsylvania elects its State Treasurer this year. Four Democrats are running in the April 22 primary for that office. All of them needed 1,000 valid signatures. Furthermore, their statewide petitions had to contain 100 valid signatures from each of 5 different counties.
Two of the four candidates had a challenge to their petitions filed. However, on March 11, both challenged petitions prevailed in state court. The courts sifted through each signature and decided that each of the two challenged candidates did have at least 100 valid signatures from each of 5 counties.
S.108, the Vermont to bill to use Instant-Runoff Voting for congressional elections, passed the House Appropriations Committee on March 11. Now it goes to the House floor, to be debated March 13 and March 14. Then, if it passes there, it goes to the Governor. It passed the Senate last year.
