The Peace & Freedom Party of California has been holding a presidential primary ever since 1972. It didn’t hold a presidential primary in 1968, the first year it was on the ballot. It will be holding one again on February 5, 2008. California election practices (for minor party presidential primaries) involve the party’s state chair telling the Secretary of State which presidential candidates to list.

The Peace & Freedom Party State Executive Committee met on September 16, and set its list of presidential candidates. Six candidates are also seeking the nomination of the Socialist Party, which holds its presidential convention in St. Louis October 19-21, 2007. Most or all of these six will withdraw from the PFP primary if they don’t get the Socialist Party nomination. These six are: Stewart Alexander of Murrieta, California; Eric Thomas Chester of Montague, Massachusetts; Mary Alice Herbert of Putney, Vermont; Stanley Hetz of Smithfield, Pennsylvania; Brian Moore of Spring Hill, Florida; and Dwight Welch of Carbondale, Illinois. Candidates may withdraw until early November 2007.

The other three presidential candidates who will appear on the PFP primary, unless they withdraw, are John Crockford of Fresno, California; Gloria LaRiva of San Francisco; and Ralph Nader.

Candidates need not formally declare their candidacy to appear on the California presidential primary. The legal criteria is that they have been mentioned in media as potential candidates for the party. Since the media don’t cover minor parties very well, the custom for the California Secretary of State has been to simply let the party leadership tell her which candidates to list.

Louisiana elects its state officers in the odd year before presidential election years. This year the Louisiana state election is on October 20. The Times-Picayune, largest newspaper in New Orleans, has a story on the 12 gubernatorial candidates here. Among the 12 is T. Lee Horne, who will be the first Libertarian Party candidate for Louisiana Governor ever; and Belinda Alexandrenko, who is the candidate of a party she created called Hope for America Party. She was the Reform Party candidate for Governor in 1999; in that election she polled 8,978 votes, or .7%.

If no one gets at least 50%, there will be a run-off among the top two in November 2007.

Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives have decided not to bring up HR 811 for a vote this week, and it probably won’t be brought up at all unless the sponsors can demonstrate that the bill has enough commitments to pass. HR 811 is Congressman Rush Holt’s bill to require vote-counting machines to have a paper trail.