The Census Bureau has released “Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2010”. The report can be seen at this link. The Census Bureau has been preparing this report for many decades. A new report is released after each Congressional election. The data is from surveys, not from election returns statistics.

Oregon, Washington, and Maine, have the highest participation. Oregon and Washington are the only two states that send ballots in the postal mail to all registered voters (although in 2010, Washington state had one county that didn’t do that). And Maine, in 2010, was one of the states with election day registration. Ironically, the Maine legislature repealed provision for election-day registration this year, but that change isn’t in effect because a referendum petition was filed to let voters vote on election-day registration in November 2012.

New York City Board of Elections says the official vote totals for the special election, U.S. House 9th district, from September 13, are:

Bob Turner, 32,526 votes on the Republican line and 4,816 votes on the Conservative line.
David Weprin, 31,285 votes on the Democratic line, 1,425 on the Working Families line, and 946 on the Independence Party line
Chris Hoeppner, 143 votes on the Socialist Workers Party line

The Hoeppner vote, which is only .20%, is astonishingly low. Generally, when three candidates are on the ballot in a special election, it is unheard of for any of the three to poll less than one-half of 1%.

Furthermore, the day after the election, the unofficial vote totals had been announced as:

Bob Turner, 27,867 votes on the Republican line and 4,536 on the Conservative line.
David Weprin, 25,587 on the Democratic line, 1,248 on the Working Families line, and 764 on the Independence line
Chris Hoeppner, 277 on the Socialist Workers line.

The official totals are bigger than the election night returns for every party line, except for the Socialist Workers line. On the Socialist Workers line, the final total is only half as many votes as the election night total.

It is also plausible that the design of the ballot was such that it was difficult for an ordinary voter to even see Chris Hoeppner’s name on the ballot. Ballot Access News is trying to find a picture of the ballot.

On September 28, Ohio Democrats filed a lawsuit with the State Supreme Court, seeking a ruling that the recently enacted bill drawing boundaries for U.S. House districts is subject to referendum. The bill includes an appropriation. The law is ambiguous as to whether the referendum process can be used for the redistricting bill. Generally, bills with an appropriation aren’t subject to referendum, but sometimes they are. See this story.

Because Ohio recently decided to hold its 2012 primary in March, instead of the expected May, the lawsuit adds even more uncertainty to Ohio’s election administration. Another uncertainty is whether the referendum petition against an earlier omnibus election law bill will succeed in getting enough signatures. The signatures are due tomorrow (Thursday, September 29). UPDATE: the lawsuit is State ex rel Ohioans for Fair Districts v Husted, 11-1646.