independentsforkerry.org

Ballot Access News (excerpt):

The District of Columbia defines a party as a group that polled as much as 7,500 votes in the last election, for the offices that do count. When it became apparent that no Republican had polled as many as 7,500 votes this year for an office that counts toward the vote test, it seemed that the party had lost its qualified status.

However, the D.C. Board of Elections has now interpreted the law to mean that a party that meets the vote test for its presidential nominee is then immune from having to meet the vote test in the following midterm year. The law itself is worded ambiguously. It says, “The nomination and election of any individual to the office of Delegate, Mayor, Chairman of the Council and member of the Council shall be governed by the provisions of this subchapter. No political party shall be qualified to hold a primary election to select candidates for election to any such office in a general election unless, in the next preceding election year, at least 7,500 votes were cast in the general election for a candidate of such party for any such office or for its candidates for electors of President and Vice President.”

Independent Political Report

OPEN PRIMARIES

• Partisanship Is Dead. Long Live Partisanship (by: Yana Kunichoff, t r u t h o u t | Report) Esteli Pacio-Manzano, a community organizer with the New York City Independence Party and independentvoting.org said that critics who attempt to argue for piecemeal reform do not realize the importance of a fully representative, nonpartisan democracy to the democratic process.
  “I think that you need political reform to be able to target everything,” said Pacio-Manzano. “No one thing is going to be the solution.”

• Fla. voter registration down 30,250 from 2008 (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Miami Herald)

MIDTERMS

• Poll: Only 2/3 of 2008 Obama Backers Plan to Vote Democrat (Posted by Bill Plante, CBS News) The biggest erosion of support is among independents; just 42 percent of Obama’s 2008 independent voters say they’ll support a Democrat this year. Twelve percent say they’ll vote for a Republican, and 38 percent were still undecided.
• Newspapers back independent candidate for governor in Minnesota (By Sean J. Miller, The Hill)
• Need to get voters excited? Call Bill Clinton, not Obama. A Gallup poll suggests that both Democrats and independents are more likely to be enthusiastic about a campaign visit from former President Bill Clinton than from President Obama. (By Dave Cook, Christian Science Monitor)
• Race and Beyond: Blacks Could Preserve a Progressive Majority (By Sam Fulwood III, Center for American Progress)

TEA PARTIES

• Tea Parties, Independents and Conservative Reform (Ross Douthat, NY Times/Opinion)

MINOR PARTIES

• 82% of Voters Will See at least One Libertarian on their Ballots (Ballot Access News)

NEW YORK

• Stimulus OK with Schumer (By Keith Goldberg, Times Herald-Record) Schumer said he’d favor open primaries for independent voters in New York state.
• DECISION 2010: Debate for Governor (YNN Buffalo) VIDEO of entire debate
• Cuomo the Second Tea Party Candidate (Billy Wharton, Bronx County Independent Examiner) Overall, Barron’s agenda seemed a bit narrower than Hawkins’ did.  When asked about the plight of a small business owner Barron called for more funding for black-owned businesses instead of examining the larger issues of access credit.
• Espada, Farley’s corruption, dysfunction junction courtesy of Savage (by Rick Karlin, Albany Times Union/Capitol Confidential) This anti-Pedro Espada ad has, I’m told, created a bit of agita if not anger among some Senate Democratic leaders.

The Hankster