On November 13, a staffer from the Pennsylvania House Government Committee telephoned Ken Krawchuk (a ballot access activist) and invited Pennsylvania ballot access activists to meet with some legislators on that committee about ballot access policy. This is a good sign that the 2007 session of the legislature might make some improvements.
For several years, there have been two factions of the Prohibition Party. The October 1, 2006 issue of Ballot Access News had noted that the faction in opposition to Earl Dodge had sets its presidential convention for September 13-14, 2007, in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Now the faction in support of Earl Dodge has set its national convention at a church in Denver, Colorado, for June 11-12, 2007.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit in Pennsyvlania state court to determine which set of national officers is entitled to the bequest that is owed to the national party each year, has a hearing on January 18, 2007.
It appears that the Green Party did poll enough votes for Nebraska Secretary of State to be on the ballot automatically in 2008. However, the results won’t be completely known until December 4. Not all of the provisional ballots have been processed. The preliminary results show that the Green candidate got 27,180 votes, and needed 27,034.
In 2006, the Green Party completed 15 statewide petitions to place itself, or its statewide nominees, on the ballot successfully. Six of them overcame hurdles of 10,000 or more signatures: Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia. Although the Independent Green Party of Virginia is not affiliated with the national Green Party, it is the only party with “Green” in its name that has been on the ballot in Virginia for the past 4 years, so it is included in this list.
The Libertarian Party successfully completed 7 statewide petitions to place itself, or its statewide nominees, on the ballot this year, and only one of them was in a state that required 10,000 or more signatures (that was New York).
The Constitution Party successfully completed 3 statewide petitions to place itself, or its statewide nominees, on the ballot this year, as did the Socialist Workers Party and the Working Families Party.
As noted earlier, the 13th district U.S. House race in Florida was extremely close. Only 300 votes separate the Democrat and the Republican candidates; no other candidates ran. In Sarasota County, Florida, 13% of the people who voted, failed to vote for U.S. House. This picture of the electronic screen ballots shows why. Note pages one and two. In the other three counties in the 13th district, more than 97% of the voters who came to the polls voted for U.S. House. The other three counties did not have this bad design. Also, among the Sarasota County absentee voters who voted by mail (and thus were not subject to this bad design) more than 98% voted for U.S. House.
Since Sarasota County voters who did vote for U.S. House were disproportinately more supportive of the Democratic candidate than the other counties in the district, it is very likely that this poor design cost the Democrats a seat.
