Seats that are in no danger of going Republican

[jducoeur]

Thanks for the Votemaster for the pointer to this minor but amusing political side-note. Apparently, Rep. Peter Welch of VT is popular enough that the Republicans didn't bother to officially nominate anyone against him. A band of Democrats got together to write him in for the Republican ballot in the primary, and actual Republican turnout was so low that he won that, as well as the Democratic nomination. So he'll be running against himself in November...

Comments

[corwyn-ap.livejournal.com]

Vermont is a very strange place.

[runolfr.livejournal.com]

In other news, Bob Barr (the Libertarian nominee) is filing suit to have Obama and McCain taken off the Texas ballot because they weren't officially nominated 70 days before election day.

[ckd]

That'd be amusing, since there's basically no chance Obama would win TX. It would cost McCain 34 electoral votes, and make the magic number 253 instead of 270.

Using today's electoral-vote.com numbers, it'd be 252-231. That means that McCain would have to win "tied" PA to force a 252-252 tie, which would go to the House...exciting times.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Er, the magic number should stay the same, right? The electoral college wouldn't be shrinking, and a candidate still needs to hold a majority to win without congressional action, right?

It would really just be taking away 34 McCain votes, which means it's not very likely to come to pass in Texas.

[ckd]

Aha, well spotted. I'd thought it required only a plurality to win, but it explicitly requires a majority.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Depending on the laws for Write-in candidates in Texas, the populace may still have a way to deal with this.

rules pedantry

[be-well-lowell.livejournal.com]

Does that actually qualify as running against himself? I've certainly voted in places where a candidate was listed on more than one line, and got the votes from all of them.