On November 6, Green Party nominee Kade Holliday, running for Craighead County Clerk (Arkansas) defeated his only opponent, the Democratic incumbent, Nancy Nelms. Nelms had been in office since 1999. See this story.

Holliday campaigned very hard, with radio ads, yard signs, and frequent appearances. The vote was: Holliday 18,471; Nelms 11,487.

The Green Party won three partisan elections in Arkansas this month. Besides the legislative race already mentioned, and the Craighead County Clerk, the party elected Alvin Clay Justice of the Peace, district 6, in Mississippi County. Both Holliday and Clay were nominated at the party’s convention on May 6, 2012. These victories may make it more likely that the Green Party can successfully persuade the state legislature to ease the vote test, so the party could remain ballot-qualified. If the law were changed to provide that a party is any group that polled at least 3% of the vote at either of the last two statewide elections, it would be on automatically for 2014. In 2010, the party polled 26.91% for Attorney General, 29.35% for Auditor, and 32.46% for Treasurer. In 2012, there were no statewide races on the ballot except for President.

Brian Banks is a newly-elected member of the Michigan State House of Representatives. According to this story, he was convicted of eight felonies between 1998 and 2004, all involving writing bad checks or credit card fraud. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

No one knows yet if Gary Johnson received as many as 50,000 votes for President this month in New York state. The preliminary total for Johnson, gathered by the news media, is 42,452. However, the total on election night in New York state, as in most states, is far below what the final total will be. In 2010, New York city finished its official canvass on December 2, 2010, and the final results were 17% higher than the election night total.

The New York State Board of Elections did not release 2010 election returns until December 13, 2010, and chances are the 2012 results will not be known until mid-December 2012.

New York state defines “party” to be a group that polled 50,000 votes for Governor. When this definition was written, New York state elected its governor every two years. There is a plausible argument to be made that it is unconstitutional for a state to make it literally impossible for a group to become a “political party” at any point during a presidential election year. New York and Indiana are the only states in which a group cannot qualify as a “political party”, except on election day in mid-term years.

In 1980, the Libertarian Party polled 52,648 votes for President, and after the election was over, filed a lawsuit, alleging that it had shown enough voter support to qualify as a political party. However, the attorney who filed the lawsuit erroneously sued the New York Secretary of State, instead of the State Board of Elections, which was a fatal procedural flaw.