In the November 7, 2006 election, more votes were cast for Independent candidates for US House in Rhode Island, than were cast for Republican nominees for US House in that state.

This is due to the strong showing of independent candidate Rod Driver in the 2nd district. Driver polled 52,729 votes in a 2-person race against the incumbent Democrat. No Republican ran in that district. The Republican nominee in the state’s other district (the 1st district) only polled 41,836 votes, and an independent candidate in the 1st district polled 13,634 votes, for a combined independent vote in the state of 66,363.

Rod Driver had been a Democratic member of the Rhode Island legislature from 1987 to 1994. As an independent candidate for congress in 2006, he campaigned against U.S. policy in the Middle East.

The Democratic National Committee says it won’t choose its national convention site for 2008, until January 2007. The leading contenders are New York city and Denver. Four years ago at this time, the Democratic Party had already chosen its 2004 site, Boston. Thanks to poster #1 for making this posting more accurate.

Republicans announced months ago that they are meeting in Minneapolis in 2008. See the June 1, 2006 B.A.N. for a list of major party sites and dates of presidential conventions going back to 1856.

On December 7, proponents of an advisory Illinois initiative asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case. The 7th circuit had upheld Illinois laws on how advisory initiative petitions are circulated and checked. Specifically, Illinois law requires that election officials check a random sample of 10% of the signatures, and if the sample reveals that the number of valid signatures is less than 95% of the legal requirement, the petition is deemed invalid. The initiative proponents also challenge the law that prevents them from mixing signatures from different counties on the same sheet of paper (also certain cities must also be separated out).

The case is Protect Marriage Illinois v Orr, 06-787.

This makes at least 7 election law cases now in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. None of them has yet been chosen to be heard by that court. The others are:
1. New York State Bd. of Elections v Lopez Torres, 06-766 (primary ballot access)
2. Nader v Seroty, 06-696 (mandatory costs assessed against a candidate who is removed from the ballot, Pennsylvania)
3. Romanelli v Election Board, 06-742 (procedures for checking petitions, Pennsylvania)
4. Initiative & Referendum Institute v Utah, 06-534 (can state require initiatives on certain subjects to receive two-thirds of vote?)
5. Wexler v Anderson, 06-401 (are vote-counting machines with no audit trail unconstitutional?)
6. Washington v Republican Party, 06-713 & 06-730 (is top-two primary unconstitutional when party objects and when party labels are placed on ballot?)