Three unions – the Public and Commercial Services Union, the National Union of Teachers and the University and College Union – are set to ballot their members on strike action; 300,000 members of Unison are already pledged to walk out this winter.
Monday night, Israel's Parliament was scheduled to dissolve itself and officially set the balloting for Jan . 22 creating a lightning campaign calendar that many here see as Mr. Netanyahu's effort to derail Mr. Olmert from gathering momentum.
More than 150,000 coveted tickets for the London Olympics were sent overseas after foreign bidders hijacked the ballot set up for British sports fans.
Toronto mayor Rob Ford withdrew from his re-election race on Friday, only half an hour before a deadline to set the final ballot.
Traditionally, each party gives the others free reign to set their own ballot access rules, so that if Mr. Bruno and Mr. Pataki reach some agreement, the Democrats who control the State Assembly would go along with it.
It introduces rules that set new strike ballot thresholds – a turnout of at least 50% of members will be needed – for a strike to be deemed lawful; limits the length of a strike ballot mandate; empowers employers to hire strike-breaking agency staff; and may introduce a new criminal offence of intimidation on a picket line.
The ballot, set to take place on May 29, needs to secure the support of at least three-quarters of 209 member countries in order to pass.
This was supposed to be the year of Pot-Palooza, when five states are set to hold ballot initiatives that would make marijuana legal for recreational users.
Under questioning by Mr. Boies, Judge Burton said that despite such effort, there were still 3,300 ballots set aside on which the board could not determine a vote -- the very ballots that the Democrats want Judge Sauls to count.
The standard for evaluating ballots set by the Florida Supreme Court -- that a vote is legal if there is a clear indication of the intent of the voter -- is drawn directly from Florida law and served as the basis for the successful manual recounting that was done last month in several counties.
