On November 6, thirteen independent candidates were elected to state legislatures. They are:
Alaska: Daniel Ortiz
Maine: Walter Riseman, Jeff Evangelos, William Pluecker, Norman Higgins, Kent Ackley
Massachusetts: Susannah Whipps
Vermont: Terry Norris, Barbara Murphy, Benjamin Jickling, Laura Sibilia, and Kelly Pajala
Wyoming: Jim Roscoe
All of these were elected to the lower house, not the State Senate.
On November 15, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker issued an injunction in Democratic Executive Committee of Florida v Detzner, n.d., 4:18cv-520. The injunction applies to approximately 5,000 voters whose provisional ballot, or mailed absentee ballot, was rejected because the signature on the outer envelope of the ballot didn’t appear to match the signature on that voter’s registration form. Here is the order, which gives the voters until November 17 to return to the election office and present evidence that they did sign their outer envelope. The case had been filed on November 8, 2018.
The state has already filed a notice of Appeal to the Eleventh Circuit.
The Washington State Supreme Court will hear Guerra v Washington State, 95347-3, on Tuesday, January 22, 2019, at 9 a.m. This is the case brought by some Democratic presidential electors in 2016. They were fined because they did not vote for Hillary Clinton.
On November 15, U.S District Court Judge Lance E. Walker refused to enjoin the ongoing count of Maine ranked-choice ballots. Baber v Dunlap, 1:18cv-465. This is the case brought by the incumbent Republican congressman in the Second District, Bruce Poliquin. Judge Walker is a Trump appointee. Here is the 16-page order.
Florida Politics has this interesting article about the Reform Party nominee for Governor of Florida, Darcy Richardson. One of the points mentioned in the story is that most Florida counties abbreviate the names of political parties, instead of including the whole party name. The Reform Party in most counties was “Ref.”, which might look like “Rep.” to voters that are either careless or have poor eyesight. Thanks to Peter Gemma for the link.
The Florida U.S. Senate race had no candidates on the ballot other than the Republican and Democratic nominees. But the Florida Governor’s race had the Reform Party nominee and three independent candidates.
