Over the weekend, Madagascar President Marc Ravalomanana ordered the Toamasina airport closed to prevent his announced opponent, former deputy prime minister Pierrot Rajaonarivelo, from returning to the country in time to meet the October 14 deadline to register his candidacy.
Richard Winger is traveling in Europe this week, but the site is being maintained by Webmaster Eric Garris. Send any updates or blog suggestions to mailto:egarris2@antiwar.com.
On October 3, the voters of Fairbanks North Star Borough elected Mike Musick to the Assembly. He is a registered Green; the election itself is non-partisan. He won a two-person race against a former member of the Borough Assembly who is a Republican. The vote was 61.7% to 38.3%.
Although the Reform Party only has statewide candidates in two states this year (Florida and Kansas), it has candidates for the U.S. House, or for the state legislature, in additional states, specifically Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and Mississippi.
In California, the latest registration tally shows 32,402 registered Reform Party members. The party has been off the ballot in California since 2002. Usually when a party goes off the ballot, its registration declines fairly rapidly. However, Reform Party registration in California is holding up; on January 3, 2006, it had 33,795 members.
On October 5, the Center for the Study of the American Electorate released its study of voter turnout in the 2006 primaries. The Center says only 15.2% of the eligible electorate voted in the 2006 primaries, the lowest turnout for primaries since World War II. However, the Center emphasized that this does not mean the turnout in November will necessarily be low; most indicators are that it will be above normal for a mid-term general election.
The Center for the Study of the American Electorate has been the leading source for turnout data for many decades. It is now affiliated with American University.
