On November 5, 2019, the voters of Scranton, Pennsylvania, elected an independent candidate to be Mayor. She is Paige Cognetti. She defeated her major party opponents by polling 36% of the vote. In order to win, she had to contend with the straight-ticket device, which was used by thousands of voters in Scranton. This year’s election is the last time Pennsylvania is using it. See this story, which has a link to the election returns, including the number of voters who used the straight-ticket device. Thanks to Michael Thompson for the link.

The national office of the Green Party has gathered the names of nine Green Party members who were elected to public office on November 5, 2019. They are:
1. Three in Connecticut: Eric Bergman, Clinton Town Council; Ed Heflin, Constable of Greenwich; Leif Smith, Constable of Redding

2. Two in Michigan: Kat James, Ferndale City Council; Cliff Yankovich, Lowell City Council

3. One in Pennsylvania: Tara Yaney, Edwood Borough Council

4. One in Virginia: Ira Richards, Warren Co., Lord Fairfax Soil & Conservation Cmsr

5. One in California: Wayne Doyle, Humboldt Co., Timber Cove Water District

6. One in Maine: Anna Trevorrow, Portland Bd. of Education

On November 6, the California Secretary of State released a Report of Registration, the first state tally since February 2019. All six of the qualified parties increased their share of the registration. The number of independent voters decreased, both as a percentage and in absolute numbers.

The new percentages are: Democratic 44.06; Republican 23.58%; American Independent 2.86%; Libertarian .84%; Green .45%; Peace & Freedom .44%; unqualified parties .56%; unknown .47%; independent (“no party preference”) 26.74%.

The percentages in February 2019 were: Democratic 43.11%; Republican 23.57%; American Independent 2.59%; Libertarian .77%; Green .44%; Peace & Freedom .38%; unqualified parties .53%; unknown .34%; independent 28.26%.

Among the unqualified parties, the Common Sense Party has 5,519, the California National Party 568, the Constitution Party 251.

The requirement for a group to become a qualified party at the recent deadline was 66,770 registrations. That equals .33% of the number of registered voters excluding the “unknown” voters. “Unknown” voters are people who were registered automatically because they have drivers licenses or state ID cards. Those voters have not expressed a decision about party membership so they are classed as “unknown”.

The Common Sense Party had claimed that it had 15,000 registrations, but the official figure is lower. The center of registered voters in the Common Sense Party is San Diego County.