The New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, will hear the Independence Party dispute over who its nominee is on Friday, February 22. The election involved is the special election to fill the vacant State Senate seat in the 48th district. That special election is set for Tuesday, February 26.

One county unit of the Independence Party nominated one candidate, but the other county unit of that party in that district nominated another candidate. The lower court had ruled that the State Committee should have made the nomination.

Although there are many disadvantages to old-fashioned mechanical voting machines, they have one advantage; the ballot can be changed almost at the last minute. New York is the only state still using old-fashioned mechanical voting machines. Changing the ballot involves inserting various labels next to the levers. Of course, that does not solve the absentee ballot problem.

Here is a link to the Washington state presidential primaries, courtesy of the Washington Secretary of State’s office. The Democratic presidential primary is only a beauty contest, but is surprisingly close.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died at his home in The Netherlands on February 6, 2008. He was age 91. In 1992 he told his followers all over the world to found Natural Law Parties in their own nation.

The U.S. Natural Law Party was founded in April 1992, and managed to place its presidential candidate, John Hagelin, on the ballot in 28 states that year, an outstanding achievement for a party organized that late. The party disbanded in 2004, although its Michigan unit is still ballot-qualified. During the party’s lifetime, it won two constitutional ballot access cases. It won a case against the Kansas law that said a party could have only one word in its name. It also won against the South Carolina law that said a new party had to hold conventions in the spring of the election year.