On October 6, U.S. District Court Judge Norman Moon refused to require the University of Virginia Center for Politics to invite independent Virginia gubernatorial candidate Russell Potts into its gubernatorial debate. Since the debate sponsor is a branch of the state government, Potts should have won the case. The US Supreme Court said in Arkansas Educational TV Foundation v Forbes, 523 US 666 (1998), that government-owned entities must include all candidates with a real campaign, when they hold debates. Potts has a very substancial campaign and a large campaign budget, and has his own TV ads.

The debate will now include only the Democratic and Republican nominees, and will be held October 9.

New York city elects its 3 citywide partisan officers on November 8. In the Mayor’s race, eight candidates will be on the ballot. They are the nominees of the Republican, Democratic, Conservative, Socialist Workers, Libertarian and Green Parties, as well as two independent candidates. The Working Families Party has no nominee for Mayor, and the Independence Party cross-endorsed the Republican nominee.

For the two lesser citywide posts, no Republicans were able to qualify. The Comptroller’s race has nominees of the Democratic, Conservative, Working Families, Socialist Workers and Libertarian Parties. The Public Advocate’s race has nominees of only the Democratic, Conservative and Libertarian Parties, plus one independent candidate.

On October 5, California held a special election for US House, 48th district. Since no one got 50%, there will be a run-off (featuring the top vote-getter from each of 5 parties) on December 6.

The unofficial October 5 results are: the 9 Republicans, together, polled 67.3% of all the votes cast. The 4 Democrats together polled 16.6% of the vote. The Constitution Party nominee, Jim Gilchrist, polled 16.1% (in California, the Constitution Party is called the American Independent Party). The Green nominee polled .9% and the Libertarian nominee polled .8%.