The Republican Party of Florida sponsored a presidential debate on Fox News on October 21. Alan Keyes was not permitted to participate. The party said no one could debate who did not register at 1% in recent polls.
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Since 1991, West Virginia has had a law that says candidates (other than independent candidates) must be registered members of the party that nominates them. No one had ever thought this law applies to presidential candidates. But on October 18, Betty Ireland, West Virginia Secretary of State, said that even though she feels the law is unwise and perhaps unconstitutional, that she must enforce it. Therefore, she has invited the Mountain Party (the state’s only ballot-qualified party) to sue her. The Mountain Party plans to accept this invitation, and hopes to file the lawsuit early in November.
The Mountain Party pointed out that George W. Bush has not been a registered Republican during the 35 years he has lived in Texas (since Texas doesn’t have registration by party). Yet West Virginia put him on the ballot. The party made the same point about former Presidents George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, as well as Ross Perot (who was on the 1996 West Virginia ballot as the Reform Party nominee). Those three candidates all lived in states without party registration. Also, the Mountain Party said that Ralph Nader was on the West Virginia ballot as the Green Party nominee in 2000, even though he was a registered independent. The Secretary of State responded that this is just because no one had paid any attention to the law in past years.
Stephen Colbert is not assured of a place on either the South Carolina Republican primary ballot, or the South Carolina Democratic primary ballot. See here for an article that gives the details. Thanks to Michael Ravnitzky for this news.
On October 19, California’s Secretary of State released a new registration tally, as of September 4, 2007. This is the first California tally since the February 10, 2007 tally.
The new figures show very little change. The first percentage below is the February 2007 tally; the second one is the September 2007 tally. The Republican and Reform Parties declined moderately. The Democratic and Green Parties declined slightly. The Constitution Party gained slightly, the Libertarian and Peace & Freedom Parties were stationary, and the independents gained moderately.
Feb. 2007 Sept. 2007
Democratic 42.52% 42.50%
Republican 34.19% 33.84%
Constitution (AIP) 2.00% 2.04%
Green .89% .88%
Libertarian .53% .53%
Peace & Freedom .37% .37%
Reform (not on ballot) .22% .19%
indp. & other 19.28% 19.65%
The Reconstruction Party of New Orleans, Louisiana, was founded on September 2, 2007. Its first nominee for public office was in a special election for New Orleans City Council-at-large, held October 20. Thirteen candidates ran for a single seat. The Reconstruction Party ran Malcolm Suber. He polled 1.15% of the vote. Since the Reconstruction Party isn’t a qualified party in Louisiana, Suber was listed on the ballot as an “Other” candidate. He had been endorsed by Cynthia McKinney and by the Louisiana Green Party. Suber is founder of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund.