On November 8, Maine voters elected three Democratic presidential electors and one Republican presidential elector. This is the first time Maine has elected electors from different parties since 1828. In 1828, Maine elected one elector from each U.S. House district, just as it has been doing starting in 1972. In the 1828 election, Andrew Jackson, the Democratic nominee, carried the Cumberland District. All other districts elected National Republican electors, who voted for John Quincy Adams.

Maine newspaper stories say that the Maine electoral vote split this year is a first, but that is because the reporters who wrote the stories didn’t know about the 1828 election in Maine.

Two independents have just been elected to the Maine State House of Representatives. They are Kent Ashley in the 82nd district and Owen Casas in the 94th district. Neither was an incumbent. Both were in two-person races. Ackley defeated a Republican, and Casas defeated a Democrat.

Four independents had been elected to the Maine House in 2014, but all four declined to run for re-election. The new Maine House will consist of 77 Democrats, 72 Republicans, and the two independents. The Portland Press-Herald newspaper has a story that erroneously says two Libertarians were elected to the State House. The newspaper story should have said two independents were elected.

Here is a link to the Vermont presidential election results, which are not final. They show that 6.9% of the voters cast a write-in vote, and 7.3% of the voters voted for a minor party or independent candidate who was listed on the ballot. Probably the vast majority of the write-ins are for Bernie Sanders. The Vermont Secretary of State will tally them in the near future. Thanks to Austin Cassidy for the link.

Never before have the voters of any state cast as much as 3% of their vote to any particular write-in candidate for President in a general election. The previous record had been the Ralph Nader write-in in 2000 in Idaho. He got 2.45% of the vote.