On January 8, California held a special election to fill the vacant State Senate seat, 4th district. All precincts have reported, although not all provisional and absentee ballots have been counted. So far, the vote total is: Republican Jim Nielsen 87,669; Democrat Michael Harrington 43,866. No one else appeared on the ballot, and write-ins are not allowed. Those two vote totals add up to only 131,535. Yet the district had 532,036 registered voters as of the late October 2012 tally.

Poor turnout is normal for special elections held in isolation from other important elections.

One Ohio state legislature race is still not decided. After a recount, the Republican incumbent leads by five votes over the Democratic challenger, but the Ohio State Supreme Court has accepted the challenger’s lawsuit, which concerns a few dozen disputed ballots. See this story. The case is O’Farrell v Landis, 2012-2151. The Court’s schedule for all evidence to be gathered puts resolution into the second half of February.

Mitchell Jay Rabin will interview Rocky Anderson on the evening of January 8, Tuesday, between 10:30 p.m. eastern time and 11 p.m. eastern time. Viewers in the New York city area can watch on television, and viewers anywhere else can watch on-line at this link, A Better World TV. Possibly Anderson will reveal his thoughts about the future of the Justice Party. As most readers know, Rocky Anderson is a former Mayor of Salt Lake City who founded the Justice Party slightly more than a year ago, and was its first presidential nominee. To watch on-line, use the button near the top of the TV’s web page.