On February 22, the North Carolina House passed HB 100. It makes local judicial elections partisan instead of non-partisan. Assuming the bill passes, all judicial elections in the state will be partisan. Already State Supreme Court elections, and State Appeals Court elections, are partisan.

The bill says independent candidates for local judicial office need a petition of 2% of the number of registered voters. This is lower than the existing requirement for independent candidates for legislature and U.S. House. Independents for those offices need 4% of the number of registered voters. The 4% standard is so difficult, no independent candidate for U.S. House has ever appeared on a North Carolina general election ballot, and only two independents ever appeared for State Senate.

The New York Times has this obituary for Jerome Tuccille. He was tied for being the second Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate on the ballot in any state. The party had no gubernatorial candidates in any state until 1973, when John Goodson was on in New Jersey. Tuccille got on the ballot in New York in 1974 and polled 10,503 votes. The party only had one other gubernatorial candidate in 1974 on the ballot in any state, in Minnesota. Thanks to Mark Axinn for the link.

Delaware held a special State Senate election, 10th district, on Saturday, February 25. The results: Democrat Stephanie Hansen 7,314 (58.13%); Republican John Marino 5,127 (40.75%); Libertarian Joseph D. Lanzendorfer 139 (1.12%).

When this seat had been up last time, in November 2014, the results had been: Democrat Bethany Hall-Long 6,230 (51.1%); Republican John Marino 5,963 (48.9%).

This month’s special election was key to determining which party would have a majority in the State Senate, so spending was the greatest ever in the history of Delaware State Senate elections. It is extremely rare to have a special legislative election (on an off-day in the normal election season) and have more votes cast in the special election, than had been cast in the last regularly-scheduled election, but that happened in this instance. The November 2014 total vote had been 12,293; this special election total vote is 12,580.