On November 7, members and nominees of the Green and Libertarian Parties won both partisan elections, and non-partisan elections. This post covers partisan elections.
Green Party: in New Haven, Connecticut, Green Party nominee Allan Benson defeated his Democratic opponent by 57.7% to 42.3%, for Ward 10 alderman. The vote was 386 to 283.
In Albany County, New York, Green Party nominee David Lussier, a masters degree student in Urban Planning, defeated his Democratic opponent 50.2% to 49.8%, for County Legislator, district 7. However, not all the absentee votes have been counted. So far the tally is 531 to 526. The Democratic nominee had defeated the incumbent Democrat in the September 2007 primary, and many Democrats were unhappy with that result and supported the Green nominee.
In Windham, Connecticut, one of the Green Party of Connecticut’s state chairs, Jean de Smet, was elected Selectman. She defeated both a Democratic nominee and a Republican nominee. She was running under the party label “Bottom Line Slate”. She polled 45.2%; the Democrat polled 41.8%; the Republican 13.0%. The vote was 1,637; 1,514; and 471.
Libertarian Party: Susan Bell was unanimously re-elected Town Court Judge in Hagerstown, Indiana. This is a partisan election. UPDATE: There is a second Libertarian partisan winner in Indiana. Michael Sloan was elected unanimously to the Pottawatomie Park Town Council.
Three Pennsylvania Libertarian nominees won partisan elections in Pennsylvania: Myron Dietrick was elected Avis Borough Mayor (Clinton County). Mary Lea Lucas was elected to the Borough Council in Strattenville (Clarion County). Erik Viker was elected to the Selinsgrove Borough Council (Snyder County).
Actually, Jean de Smet was not running under a party label. She had run before on the Green line, but this year she formed a coalition with disaffected Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated candidates tired of the partisan bickering in town, and they all ran as simple petitioning candidates with no party line. In CT, petitioning candidates are always listed at the bottom of the ballot, so they took “The Bottom Line” as the name of their coalition.
Four victories in Pennsylvania, four in Michigan, two in NC, one each in Ohio, Indiana, Idaho, Iowa for a total of 14 Libertarian Party victories.
Were any of these wins obtained through IRV?
Notice how there were no Green Party or Libertarian Party victories due to Instant Runoff Voting in San Francisco?
The only victors in San Francisco were the incumbents.
Are you sure that the two victories in NC were in partisan elections? Usually the wins are in non partisan contests in some city council elections.
Perhaps the third parties should capitolize on their successes in winning small offices and build on that to gain more support.
Sorry, one other comment.
North Carolina has really repressive ballot access laws, and this should be corrected. It is clearly out of line with the rest of the country.
The North Carolina wins are non-partisan.