On November 4, voters in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, elected the Labor Party nominee for an at-large seat on the County Council. Alex Rose received 178,857 votes; his Republican opponent received 138,937. Here is Rose’s campaign website.

There doesn’t appear to be an organized Labor Party in the area. Instead, Rose was essentially an independent candidate who chose “Labor” as his ballot label. Nevertheless, the outcome means that the Labor Party will be partially recognized within the county.

The reason no Democrat ran in this special election is that the county uses limited voting for this office. In regular elections, two seats are up, but no party can run more than one nominee. The purpose is to make sure that one party doesn’t win all the seats. Various other jurisdictions in Pennsylvania and Connecticut use limited voting in certain partisan elections.

In the case of this special election, because Democrats hold the other at-large seat, they couldn’t run anyone in this seat.