U.S. Senate National Totals for 2018 Shows Huge Gap Between Democrats and Republicans

Posted on by December 15, 2018
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In the 33 regularly-scheduled U.S. Senate elections held last month, the total for all Democrats was 50,770,269; for Republicans, 32,803,554.

These totals do not include votes cast for minor parties that cross-endorsed a major party nominee.  Nor do they include the votes for independent U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Angus King, even though some sources tend to lump their vote totals into the Democratic column, since those two Senators support the Democratic Party when the Senate elects its leadership.

The main reason the Democratic margin is so huge is that in California, no one was permitted to vote for anyone for U.S. Senate except a Democrat.  So the Democrats piled up 11,113,364 votes for U.S. Senate in California, with zero votes for anyone else.

Maine Secretary of State Converts all Registered Libertarians to Independents

Posted on by December 14, 2018
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On December 14, the Maine Secretary of State converted all 5,500 registered Libertarians to registered independents.  The Maine Secretary of State had been told that the party intends to file a lawsuit soon, arguing that it is unconstitutional for states to automatically change voter registration just because the party goes off the ballot.  Only a handful of states have that policy.  In five states, courts have ruled that voters have a right to be registered into unqualified parties:  Colorado, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, and Oklahoma.

If the Maine Libertarians could keep their registrations, then the party would be back on the ballot.  It lost its qualified status recently because it didn’t have at least 10,000 registrants who actually cast a ballot in November 2018.  But the law says a new party can become qualified if it has 5,000 registrants.  So if the party still had its registrants, it could re-qualify as a “new” party.

California and New York Election Officials Release Final Vote Tallies

Posted on by December 14, 2018
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On December 14, both California and New York finished their official election results tallies.  The only state that hasn’t finished is West Virginia.  The Connecticut Secretary of State’s web page says the election results listed there aren’t official, but they are official and complete except for a single legislative district, the State House 120th district.  Here are the New York results.  Here are the California results.

Some state election web pages prominently display the election night unofficial results, and yet those states also have the final official vote totals, but the final official vote totals are in a less prominent part of the web page, which might lead someone to think that the official final results are not there yet.

California Chief Justice Registers out of Republican Party

Posted on by December 14, 2018
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On December 13, in response to a question at a public meeting, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said she is no longer a registered Republican.  She had been appointed to the court by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Cantil-Sakauye did not say how she is registered now, but presumably she is an independent.  See this story.