The New York Daily News, which has long been hostile to the Independence Party of New York, has this story about the party’s showing in the New York city mayoral race of November 5, 2013. The Independence Party’s candidate, Adolfo Carrion, placed third in the race, but the story focuses on the fact that he only got eight-tenths of 1% of the total vote.

At this point no one knows how many votes were cast on the Working Families line for the Democratic Mayoral nominee, and no one knows how many votes were cast on the Conservative Party’s line for the Republican nominee. New York election officials do not release any vote totals until the results are complete and official. Therefore, all election returns on election night are from the media, and New York media never bother to get the votes cast on each party line when they do the election night report.

Therefore, it is difficult to completely analyze the Independence Party’s showing, because the election returns for some of the other ballot-qualified parties in the Mayoral race aren’t known yet. Thanks to Nancy Hanks for the link.

John Marshall, of Hot Springs, Montana, has filed a proposed statewide constitutional amendment initiative. It would mandate that when legislators are elected, half the seats would be for females, and half for males. Presumably this could be achieved if each district were to elect two legislators. Because it is a proposed state Constitutional amendment, it seems likely that it would be constitutional. It would not violate the U.S. Constitution, because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that there is no fundamental right for an individual to be a candidate for state or local office.

Here is an article about the proposal. As the article notes, the author of the initiative was a Libertarian Party nominee for State Senate in 2012. He polled 7.64% in a race with both major parties also in the race. Thanks to Mike Fellows for the link.