As Washington election officials continue to tally more votes from the August 7 primary for U.S. House, 2nd district, the identity of the second-place finisher has changed twice. Votes posted on Friday, August 10, now show the Libertarian Party candidate, Brian Luke, in second place. Whoever places second will appear on the November ballot under the top-two system.

Here are the results as of the end of the day, August 10. Luke has 11,738; independent Gary Franco has 11,664; a Democrat has 11,602; and the Republican, Mike the Mover, has 11,249.

If Luke does eventually take second, that will be the first time that any minor party candidate has ever placed first or second in a top-two election, when there was also a Republican and a Democrat in the same race. It will also be the first time that a minor party candidate for U.S. House has appeared on the November ballot in Washington, since the state started using top-two in 2008.

On August 9, North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger submitted 1,300 signatures to appear on the ballot as an independent candidate. He is running for re-election as an independent because he had decided not to seek the Republican nomination. But then the individual who did win the Republican nomination withdrew, so there will be no Republican on the ballot.

The law requires 1,000 signatures. See this story.

It appears that Matt Morgan, the only Democrat running for Michigan’s U.S. House seat, First District, has easily polled enough write-ins in the August 7 primary to become the Democratic nominee in November. It is very rare for anyone to receive enough write-ins in a Michigan primary to be deemed nominated. The law requires the number of write-ins to equal 5% of the number of voters who participate in that party’s primary.

No one was on the Democratic primary ballot for U.S. House in the First District, which includes the Upper Peninsula. Morgan expected to be on the ballot but his petition had a flaw, so no one was on the Democratic primary ballot for that seat. So his campaign asked voters to cast a write-in, and it appears he has as many as 30,000, far more than the approximately 5,000 he needed. See this story.