On November 5, 2013, Mirna Lis Martinez, the Green Party nominee and a member of the Green Party, was elected to the New London, Connecticut, School Board. She was cross-endorsed by the Republican Party. See this story. The election was partisan.
On the same day, another Green nominee, Neil B. Haagen, was elected to the Snow Shoe Borough Council, Centre County, Pennsylvania. Three were to be elected and the only candidates on the ballot were two Republicans and Haagen.
On November 5, 2013, Virginia held elections for all 100 seats in the lower house of the state legislature. Six Libertarians and three nominees of the Independent Green Party ran in those elections. The unofficial percentages for the Libertarians are: 23rd district, Jonathan Parrish, 22.39% in a two-way race; 33rd district, Patrick Hagerty, 3.39% in a three-party race; 47th district, Laura Delhomme, 22.26% in a two-person race; 53rd district, Anthony G. Telloz, 4.18% in a three-party race; 55th district, Christopher G. Sullivan, 5.54% in a three-party race; 78th district, Dan J. Foster, 3.69% in a three-party race.
The Independent Greens were: 38th district, Jim Leslie, 24.56% in a two-person race; 43rd district, Gail Parker, 25.28% in a two-person race; 49th district, Terrence Modglin, 20.92% in a two-person race.
Although the Constitution Party had petitioned in the 19th district, the nominee, Joshua Ball, did not appear on the ballot. It is unknown if this is because his petition failed, or because he withdrew.
The Nevada government has asked the U.S. Supreme Court for more time to respond to the Republican Party’s brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Republican Party of Nevada v Miller, 13-442. The issue is whether the Ninth Circuit erred when it said that neither the Republican Party, nor its candidates for presidential elector in 2012, nor the plaintiff-voters, have standing to challenge Nevada’s law that puts “none of these candidates” on the ballot for statewide office.
The Court had originally set the state’s deadline as November 8, but now the Court has granted the state’s request for more time, and the state response is due December 9.
On November 5, Libertarian Party members were elected in these elections:
Brett Bittner was re-elected to the Marietta, Georgia School Board; Walter Reynolds was elected to the Milledgeville, Georgia city council; Erwin Haas was elected to the Kentwood, Michigan city commission; Matt Hoerner was elected to the Hope Mills, North Carolina Board of Commissioners; Shawn Felty was elected to the Cressona, Pennsylvania Borough Council; Nicholas Hillman was elected Judge of Elections in a precinct in Berks County, Pennsylvania; Brandon Magoon was elected Inspector of Elections in a precinct in Erie County, Pennsylvania; Matt Schutter was elected Township Auditor in Penn Forest, Pennsylvania. UPDATE: also two were elected in Michigan. They were Erwin Haas to the Kentwood City Commission, and Andy LeCureaux to the Hazel Park city council.
The Pennsylvania wins were in partisan elections; the others were non-partisan. Update: here is a newspaper story about Shawn Felty’s win. Cressona Borough was electing two council members, and there were three candidates on the ballot, Felty and two Republicans. Felty received 195 votes; the two Republicans received 187 votes and 168 votes.
On November 5, Richard Smolka died at the age of 81 at his home in Mesa, Arizona. He founded Election Administration Reports in 1971 and was editor for over 40 years. It continues to be published, every two weeks, and is a print publication, not on the internet.
He had been an elections observer and consultant for voting procedures in 25 countries, especially countries that were just starting to hold free elections. He was very helpful to me, and his newsletter’s long existence as a print publication was an inspiration for me to found Ballot Access News. He and I sat together in the press section of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000, when the Court held oral arguments in California Democratic Party v Jones, a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court reversed all the lower court judges who had heard the case earlier, and ruled in favor of associational rights for political parties. Immediately after the hearing, Smolka correctly predicted that the Court would rule in favor of the political parties who had filed the case. He also predicted in mid-2000 that the upcoming presidential election would result in one presidential candidate winning an electoral college majority while placing second in the popular vote. He said that in a speech to a convention of election officials, and history proved that prediction right as well, even though such a thing hadn’t happened since 1888.
