On June 4, the Sixth Circuit declined to grant reconsideration to the Ohio Libertarian Party, in its ballot access case. See this story. As a result, the only candidates on the November 2014 ballot for Ohio Governor will be the nominees of the Republican, Democratic, and Green Parties.

This news enhances the odds that the Green Party will poll at least 2% for Governor and remain on the ballot for the 2016 and 2018 elections. In 2010 the Green Party got 1.52% for Governor, in a four-party race in which the Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate polled 2.39%. Thanks to Steve Linnabary for the link.

The June 3, 2014 California top-two primary appears likely to have had the lowest turnout in state history. California has had primaries starting in 1910, and the previous worst primary turnout was the June 2008 primary, which had no statewide offices (the presidential primary had been in March 2008) and which had a turnout of 28.22%.

The number of votes reported for Governor by 3:30 a.m. early on the morning of June 4 was 3,153,000. No further updates have been issued. Assuming there are 1,000,000 uncounted provisional and absentee ballots that had not yet been counted, that would still yield a total of 4,153,000 voters. California’s last Report of Registration showed 17,722,006 registered voters, so that would mean a turnout of 23.4%. UPDATE: the total reported at 5:30 p.m. on June 4 is 3,173,148; on June 5, 3,296,369.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian criticized the top-two system in this editorial, written before any election returns were known. The editorial is flawed because it predicted that Tim Donnelly would place second for Governor, instead of Neel Kashkari. The editorial is also flawed because it refers to Prop. 14 as an “open primary”.

Tim Donnelly outpolled Neel Kashkari in San Francisco and Alameda Counties, the two most Democratic counties in the state. This strongly suggests that some Democrats were engaging in strategic voting, something that would not have been possible in a closed or semi-closed primary.

On June 3, California held a top-two primary for Congress and partisan state office. All 25 minor party candidates who were on the ballot failed to place first or second. As a result, in all U.S. history, there have now been 111 instances in which a minor party member ran for Congress or partisan state office in a top-two system (in elections in which there were at least two major party candidates also running). In all 111 instances, the minor party member did not place first or second and was therefore barred from the general election ballot.

There will be at least three minor party members on the California November ballot, but all three (and conceivably even a few more) ran in races with only one major party member running in the same race. All three of the minor party candidates were write-in candidates in June, and since only one write-in filed in each of these three races, the three minor party candidates cannot fail to place second (assuming the candidate receives at least one write-in vote; write-ins haven’t been counted yet).