Oregon Election News: Nader, Fusion Voting and More

Today has been proof that election news need not stop when the Olympics happen.  Instead, there have been several fairly important stories to come out today, four of which will be covered here.

Cross-Posted from Loaded Orygun: http://www.loadedorygun.net/sh…

Nader tries to sneak in the back door:

Link: http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2008/08/nader_trying_to_slip_onto_the.html#more

I had been saying for a while that I didn’t see how Nader was going to make the ballot in Oregon this fall given that I had not seen any apparent effort by his supporters to mount a signature campaign.  That maybe changing as last week a new political party (the “Peace” party) emerged from the shadows and submitted 25,000 signatures to qualify their party for the ballot.  Assuming they have sufficient signatures (they need between 20-21,000 valid ones, which is far from certain), this would grant them automatic ballot access.  According to Jeff Mapes of the Oregonian, they are then likely to nominate Nader.  I don’t think it’ll have much of an impact because people love Obama, it’s not likely to be that close and Nader has lost a lot of power here, but it’s worth watching.

Whither fusion voting?:

Link: http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2008/08/independent_party_goes_to_cour.html

The Independent Party of Oregon, now the third-largest party in the state, filed a lawsuit Wednesday to force the state to allow fusion-voting.  For those of you not from the Northeast, fusion voting is where multiple parties are allowed to nominate the same candidate.   The votes for that candidate are combined among all the parties they are nominated by.

For example:

Candidate A is nominated only by the Republican Party and gets 45% of the vote.

Candidate B is nominated by the Democratic Party and the Independent Party, they got 40% of the vote as a Democrat and 15% as an Independent Party member for a total of 55% of the vote, meaning candidate B wins.

Except action on this soon as the ballot deadline is August 26.

Gordon Smith ducks the McCain campaign:

Link: http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2008/08/gordon_smith_wont_be_a_mccain.html

Gordon Smith continued to run away from the State GOP today as he announced that he will not be on John McCain’s Oregon steering committee.  Smith, who would otherwise prefer that no one remember he is really a Bush Republican, had already announced that he will not go to the Republican Convention next month.  Interesting to see what kind of impact this will have with a GOP electorate that was not his biggest fan to begin with.

Craig Robinson, Obama’s brother-in-law and Oregon State Basketball Coach, will speak in Denver:

Link: http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2008/08/osu_basketball_coach_will_spea.html

In the fun category, it has been announced that Obama’s brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, will introduce his sister Michelle on the first night of the Democratic Convention in Denver.  Should be fun to watch.

Let me know what you think.