On November 15, Maine finished the Ranked Choice second round of counting in the U.S. House, 2nd district, race. Democrat Jared Golden won the election, defeating incumbent Republican Bruce Poliquin. The first choice votes favored Poliquin, but after the voters who had voted for one of the two independent candidates had their second or third choices counted, the results changed. Over 7% of the voters had given the independent candidates their first choice vote.
Last week, nine candidates who were members of the Progressive Party of Vermont, and whose ballot label showed they were Progressive Party members, were elected. This is the same number the party elected in 2016.
The two winners in the State Senate are incumbents Christopher Pearson and Anthony Pollina.
The house winners are: Brian Cina, Selene Colburn, Diana Gonzalez, Robin Chesnut-Tangerman, Mollie S. Burke, Zacariah Ralph, and Sandy Haas.
Vermont permits fusion. When a party is the nominee of two parties, the candidate’s party of membership is listed first, followed by the name of any other party that also nominated that candidate. Some, but not all, of the elected Progressives also had the nomination of the Democratic Party.
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.
