The Leavenworth (Kansas) Times has this interesting column by political scientist Ernest Evans, on the useful role minor parties have played in U.S. history.
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The Brookings Institution, a venerable think tank in Washington, D.C., has posted this article about top-two primaries.
The report, by Professor Elaine Kamarck and Georgetown Graduate Student Alexander R. Podkul, uses confusing vocabulary, and sometimes refers to top-two primaries as “blanket primaries.” Blanket primaries only exist in Alaska, and they provide that the top vote-getter in the primary from the ranks of each party advance to the general election. These definitions are all set forth in “Voting at the Political Fault Line” (lead author Bruce Cain), a compendium of scholarly articles about primaries published by the University of California Berkeley Press.
Here is a description of the 3-party debate in North Carolina’s Senate race, which was held on October 9. UPDATE: see this longer story. Thanks to Christopher Cole for that link.
On October 13, a four-party debate for U.S. Senate will be held in Arkansas. The debaters will be the nominees of the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and Green Parties. The debate will be carried live on C-SPAN. Thanks to Mark Swaney for this news.
On October 9, the UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) won a special House of Commons election. Its nominee, Douglas Carswell, had been elected as a Conservative in the previous regular election, but then he had switched parties. He then resigned his seat and ran to remain in that seat, under his new party label. He won almost 60% of the vote. See this story.
In another special election on the same day, for a district which normally votes Labour, UKIP came in second and would have won if its nominee had received 621 more votes. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the news.