On May 10, Nebraska held primaries for four parties: Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Legal Marijuana Now. Here is a link to the statewide primary returns. At least 1,824 voters chose a Libertarian primary ballot. At least 863 voters chose a Legal Marijuana Now primary ballot.
In 2018, when the Libertarian Party was the only qualified third party, 1,269 voters chose the Libertarian primary ballot.
Nebraska has partisan registration. The Democratic, Libertarian, and Legal Marijuana Now Parties let independents vote in their primary for all partisan office.
So, for the state-wide offices, the Democrats are only running a candidate for Governor?
Does Nebraska have a requirement for run-offs if no one gets 50%? If not, then the Republican nominee for Governor only got 33.87% meaning 66.13 or almost 2/3rds of the Republicans didn’t support him/wanted someone else?
Are there any Libertarians running for the (non-partisan) state legislature?
Three Libertarians are running for Nebraska State Senate, the most legislative candidates the party has ever had. There are also many Libertarians running for local office. Here is the list:
https://lpne.org/civicrm/profile/?reset=1&force=1&search=0&gid=46&state_province-Primary=1026
@Eric L
An instant runoff (ranked choice voting) or approval voting (pick one or more candidates, highest score wins) would also work, and be easier and cheaper than having a separate runoff election. Sounds like the Republican party of Nebraska might consider these options so this vote splitting doesn’t upset their voters.
There was also a three-way split for Secretary of State.
@Richard Winger, thank you for the info and link.
@Adam Cerini, I have been an advocate for IRV/STV/RCV for decades. When looking at the results of this Nebraska primary it is very conceivable that if IRV was used either of the two closest candidates in the Republican primary(Lindstrom or Herbster) might have won. There were nine candidates running. If the vote hadn’t been split I wonder if in the end a majority of Republicans would have preferred another candidate over Pillen. It just seems odd that 2/3rds of Republicans didn’t want Pillen but he is now their candidate.
Condorcet = RCV done right.
We can’t know for sure, but logically based on their positions, Pillen was probably the second choice of most voters who didn’t have him as their first choice, so he probably would have won under the other voting systems.