Rory writes "This could be it for Ralph Nader. A Florida judge has issued a preliminary injunction, ruling the Reform Party is no longer a party, thereby knocking its candidate, Ralph Nader, off the Florida ballot. The devil is in the details, and Florida has too many electoral votes for this not to have serious impact on the national election, if this preliminary ruling holds up on appeal."

beaverbrother writes "As an experiment, a group of engineers from around the world created us-election.com. People over 18 from around the world can vote on the site. Its amazing the difference between U.S. viewpoint and world viewpoint. Kerry leads on the site overwhelmingly, while Bush is ahead in the U.S."

chrisspurgeon writes "The science journal Nature put 15 questions to Senator Kerry and President Bush. Read the candidates' responses on topics such as stem cell research, greenhouse emissions, and manned spaceflight to Mars."

Joseph_Daniel_Zukige writes "I'm still trying to figure out who is doing what here. It looks like the typical bureaucratic mess, but it looks like NIST, operating under the Help America Vote Act has set up a Technical Guidelines Development Committee to advise the 'independent bipartisan' United States Election Assistance Commission. So, the TGDC is going to hold some public hearings, and they've invited members of the public to help them out: 'One hour will be reserved at the conclusion of each day for members of the public to provide up to five minutes of testimony.'" Read more below, including how to register (today is the deadline) for the meetings, which will take place in central Maryland later this month. Update: 09/15 18:04 GMT by T : Irvu writes "You can submit online comments to NIST's Technical Guidelines process. The link is here. Just click on the link marked 'Submit Comments or Position Statements.' Alternately you can e-mail your comments to vote@nist.gov."

Our first interview subject for politics.slashdot.org is the Libertarian Party candidate for US President, Michael Badnarik. You can read his blog to learn more about him. Standard Slashdot interview rules apply: Post your questions today in this discussion. Moderators do your thing. We'll select ~10 questions, and hopefully get answers later this week.

code_rage writes "Carolyn Lockhead of The San Francisco Chronicle has written an article about one of the most important, but overlooked, political issues we are facing. Baby-boomers will soon begin retiring, which will result in a huge fiscal imbalance (deficits and debts). The article says that the present value of the anticipated debt is estimated to be between $40 trillion and $72 trillion, depending on the source. To put that in perspective, the current national debt is $7.3 trillion.""

siriuskase writes "Is it too much to ask of our technology/math skills to award electorial votes in proportion to the popular vote? Colorado might be up to the task. From the article: On Nov. 2, voters will consider a proposal to immediately scrap the state's winner-take-all electoral vote system and allow candidates to keep a proportion of the delegates they win. In theory, a candidate could win 55 percent of the statewide vote and get only five of the state's nine electoral votes. If the proposal had been in place four years ago, Gore would have earned enough electoral votes to go to the White House. "

eggoeater writes "With the general interest Slashdot has with electronic voting machines, I thought we'd all enjoy reviewing Dave Barry's take on touch-screen voting machines and debating the merits of police officers carrying lightsabers."

An Anonymous Reader writes "Locus Magazine asks prominent science fiction writers Bruce Sterling, Kim Stanley Robinson, Cory Doctorow, Pat Murphy, Norman Spinrad, and Ken Wharton to extrapolate the future from current trends in the environment, copyright, terrorism, war, world government, and the upcoming Presidential election. How do large groups make decisions on single issues? Are centralized global systems of governance the way to go? Are stateless diasporas the driving force behind the economic development of India and China? Will there always be war? The answer to these questions and more in a round-table conducted by legendary science fiction writer John Shirley."

jsrjsr writes "Ballot Access News reports on the number of states where various candidates will be on the ballot. The site also contains a wealth of news about ballot access and other election-related issues."

Marxist Hacker 42 writes "Now that the Politics section is up and running, I can submit this story. Back in February, The American Prospect ran a speculative article on The Danger of NeoConservative One Party Rule. A quote: 'Benjamin Franklin, leaving the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, was asked by a bystander what kind of government the Founders had bestowed. "A republic," he famously replied, "if you can keep it." There have been moments in American history when we kept our republic only by the slenderest of margins. This year is one of those times.'"

An anonymous reader writes "With all the Constitutional arguments that appear on /., perhaps some readers might be interested in this BBC Article about the expiration of the Clinton assault weapons ban. Both presidential candidates have spoken in favor of it, but no one is willing to vote to keep it."

expriest writes "In an attempt to confirm Bush's most conservative nominees to the federal bench, Senate Republican leaders are considering a nuclear option. Under this procedure, the person chairing the Senate rules that filibusters of judicial nominations are unconstitutional. Republicans claim a simple majority (51 senators) would be all that is necessary to uphold this ruling, and therefore give them the power to confirm judges. The problem with this procedure, however, is that the Supreme Court could still overrule the Senate, and the status of the then improperly confirmed judges would be unknown."

loid_void writes "Leave it to Reuters to report that the run-up to the U.S. presidential election is casting the spotlight on a new crop of Web sites for political-minded singles who are seeking Mr. or Ms. Right... or Left. But as such sites make small gains in the polls, another debate is brewing among singles in this politically divided nation: Is it better to find a like-minded mate or to cross party lines in the search for true love? Reached last week on his cell phone at the Republican National Convention in New York, Brian Barcaro said he does not interparty date and has no plans to start... let the debate begin!"

rwiedower writes "So the House just voted to scrap the new overtime rules that went into effect August 23. The vote was 223-193. Were the new rules designed to shaft IT workers from getting overtime? Or were they merely designed to streamline outdated rules?"

Twirlip of the Mists writes "Last night, CBS News released a set of memos dated 1972 and 1973 that are purported to raise questions about President Bush's National Guard service. Some are saying those memos might have been produced with a computer. Blogger Scott Johnson ran with the story first this morning, raising questions about the typography of the memos. Blogger Charles Johnson (no relation) went one step further, actually reproducing one of the memos in its entirety using Microsoft Word's default settings. Matt Drudge is running the story now with a link to a CNS News article that includes quotes from typography experts at font foundries Afga Monotype and Bitstream. There's a round-up of key facts about the story on this blogger's web site." The experts in the CNS News story and others could come to no conclusion, and even if the documents are not originals or photocopies of originals, that doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't faithfully retyped copies of originals. CBS continues to assert the documents are authentic.

rwiedower writes "Over the past 24 hours, several new stories have emerged surrounding President Bush's service in the National Guard. Memos from his commanding officer seem to indicate he was unhappy with Bush's desire to leave Texas, and that he felt Bush was going 'over his head' to get out of service. In true slashdot/military/government fashion, Killian even titled one memo 'CYA'. (The memos, in pdf format, are available here.)"

gleam writes "A maverick Republican mayor in West Virginia is reportedly considering not casting his vote in the Electoral College for Bush, even if Bush wins the popular vote there. South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb says, 'I know that among some in my own party, what I'm discussing would be considered treasonous, but I'm not going to cheerlead us down the primrose path when I know we're being led in the wrong direction.' It wouldn't be the first time a West Virginian Elector defied the popular vote: In 1988 an Elector cast her vote for Michael Dukakis's running mate, Lloyd Bentsen, even though Dukakis won the state's popular vote."

An anonymous user writes, "It's time to let the George W. Bush and John Kerry campaigns know that the American people want them to participate in real, democratic and engaging presidential debates hosted by the Citizens' Debate Commission." Briefly, Presidential debates have been run by the Commission on Presidential Debates since 1988, and the CPD is run by the Republican and Democratic parties, which has resulted in less informative and less watched debates that exclude third parties and anything else that could hurt the two parties. The CDC, in cooperation with Open Debates, is trying to improve the debates by removing the bipartisan control.

An anonymous reader submits "Not sure if this is for real or not, but for what it's worth, it seems like a Democratic PAC is letting people vote on where to spend US$10k of its money. Think Oregon is a more important swing state? Pennsylvania? Let' em know at ORvPA.org. What kind of issues does this raise? Think Republicans will try and game the vote? Does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? Is this a good example of trying to harness the wisdom of crowds?"