On October 27, the South Carolina Election Commission said that Republican Bobby Harrell will remain on the November ballot for State Representative, district 114. However, the Commission says it doesn’t matter how many votes he gets, his votes don’t count. There could hardly be any clearer example of the decline in the sovereignty of the voter in the United States today. It is one thing for a candidate who is elected to decline to accept the post, but quite another to tell the voters that if they vote for a particular candidate, their votes won’t be honored. See this story.

It seems somewhat likely that because this is a Republican district, Republicans will quickly come up with a write-in recommendation. Harrell recently resigned from the legislature. The ballot will list him, his Democratic opponent, and his Green Party opponent. The 114th district is in Charleston.

On October 27, a state court in Massachusetts refused to require the sponsors of that evening’s gubernatorial debate to include Evan Falchuk, nominee of the United Independent Party. See this story. UPDATE: this story has much more detail about why the judge ruled as she did.

Peter Franklin, a British politics analyst, here foresees rapid change in the British political party system. Already, the Scottish National Party has made great gains in the last few months, as has the Green Party. Better known is the rapid rise of UKIP, and the decline of the Liberal Democratic Party. Franklin sees further changes ahead.

The consequences of these dramatic changes make it likely that Britain will do as New Zealand did some years ago, and switch to proportional representation, or at least think about it seriously. If that happens, Canada may follow.