Columbus, Ohio, held elections for city council and school board on May 2. Although the elections are formally non-partisan, party organizations play a big role. The Working Families Party in Columbus, which is called Yes We Can Columbus, sponsored candidates for two city council seats and three school board seats. All five placed first or second and thus will go into a run-off in November. See the organization’s web page here.
This story explains that no Republicans qualified for the run-off, so the November election for those five offices will be between regular Democrats and Working Families associates. Because the Working Families members voted in the Democratic primary in Ohio last year, under Ohio law they are also considered to be members of the Democratic Party.
The three leading candidates had a majority of the vote. Why weren’t they elected? Does Columbus use Top 2?
Top two is a system with party labels on the ballot, but no party has nominees. Columbus city elections do not involve party labels on the ballot.
Columbus primaries are to winnow the field down to the top 6 (or 8) candidates for the November general election. The top 3 (or 4) are elected in the general.
Joe Motil will be a write-in candidate in November.