The Delaware State News, the daily newspaper for Dover, has this story about presidential write-ins in Delaware this year. The story reveals the number of write-ins cast for individuals who did not file a write-in declaration of candidacy. Very likely, a large share of those votes, perhaps a majority, were for Bernie Sanders, although the newspaper does not mention him.
Last month, Ray J. Writz, Constitution Party nominee for U.S. Senate from Idaho, polled 41,677 votes. This was 6.14%, and is the highest percentage of the vote for a non-major party candidate for U.S. Senate from Idaho since 1926.
Writz had to win a contested Constitution Party primary to gain the party’s nomination. Here is his web page. The other candidates in the general election were Republican incumbent Mike Crapo, who polled 449,017 votes; and Democrat Jerry Sturgill, who polled 188,249.
The 1926 candidate who did better than Writz was the Progressive Party nominee, H. F. Samuels, who received 29.60%. Samuels placed behind Republican Frank Gooding but ahead of Democrat John Nugent. There was no national Progressive Party in 1926, but there were several states that had strong Progressive Parties that year.
Georgia held a partisan statewide election for Public Service Commissioner last month. Only two candidates were on the ballot, a Republican and a Libertarian. The Libertarian, Eric Hoskins, polled 1,200,076 votes, 33.42%. He carried Clayton County with 69.3% of the vote, and DeKalb County with 59.8% of the vote. Here is a link to the election returns for that office.
It is absurd that a party that polls that many votes is still not considered a qualified party for U.S. House, state legislative, and county partisan offices.
Washington, D.C., has partisan elections for city council at-large. The voters elect two, but no party is permitted to run more than one candidate. At last month’s election, the Green Party nominee, G. Lee Aikin, received 29,165 votes, whereas the Republican nominee received 28,823.
Here are the official returns, but they don’t include party labels. The Democrat is Robert White. The Libertarian is Matthew Klokel. David Grasso and John Cheeks were independent candidates. The Democrat and independent Grasso were elected.
Illinois permits a party to be ballot-qualified in particular districts or counties, even if it isn’t qualified statewide. The Green Party polled enough votes last month for U.S. House, 12th district, to retain its qualified status. It has had that status ever since it went off the ballot statewide in November 2010. In 2016, its nominee Paula Bradshaw polled 6.00%, more than the needed 5%.
However, the party lost qualified status in the other U.S. House it had enjoyed since 2010. In 2016, its nominee Rob Sherman in the 5th district polled 4.67%, below the needed 5%.
