Delaware will hold a special election on Saturday, November 3, to fill a vacancy in the 14th State Senate district. Delaware parties nominate by convention, in the case of special elections. On October 6, the Independent Party nominated Joanne Christian. She has also been chosen by the Republican Party a few days earlier, so she will appear as the nominee of both parties. The Democratic nominee is State Representative Bruce Ennis.

The vacancy exists because incumbent Democratic Senator James Vaughn is retiring in the middle of his term. He was re-elected in November 2006 with 59.1% of the vote, but he has been too ill to attend the 2007 session. He is 82 and has been a State Senator for 27 years.

On October 5, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Lazzara, a Clinton appointee, ruled against a lawsuit that had been filed to force the Democratic National Committee to seat delegates from Florida. The case is DiMaio v Democratic National Committee, middle district, 8:07cv-1552. This case had been filed on August 30, 2007.

This case should not be confused with the lawsuit filed this month by U.S. Senator Bill Nelson. On the other hand, the DiMaio outcome is not good news for the Nelson lawsuit.

On September 28, the 4th circuit upheld Maryland’s law, requiring that candidates be listed on primary ballots in alphabetical order. Schaefer v Lamone, 07-1003. The 4th circuit did not write its own opinion, but merely said it agrees with the U.S. District Court decision from 2006. That decision said that the state has a “compelling interest” in “avoiding voter confusion”, and that voter confusion would result if a random method of determining ballot order were used. This is a textbook example of how the courts use “voter confusion” to justify any state restriction that they aren’t inclined to examine closely and analytically. The three 4th circuit judges in this case are M. Blane Michael and William Traxler (Clinton appointees), and Roger Gregory (a Bush Jr. appointee).