The Fresno Bee has this story, in which Fresno County election officials make a case that election administration in that county, and likely other counties, is in jeopardy from lack of resources. The article, in the second half, mentions that Proposition 14 (the top-two system), passed by the voters in June 2010, makes the problem worse.

In early 2010, county elections officials had testified that Prop. 14 would make election administration considerably more expensive, but a State Court of Appeals ruled that this information could not be mentioned in the Voters Handbook. Instead, the Voters Handbook carried a statement by a state official denying that Prop. 14 would increase the costs of election administration.

The total vote cast in the U.S. in regularly-scheduled elections for independent candidates for State Senate in November 2010 was 302,051 votes. When the same seats were up in November 2006, independent candidates received 152,151 votes.

Forty-two states held State Senate elections in each of those years. In most of those states, only half the seats were up. In the rare instance of multi-winner State Senate seats, when there was more than a single independent candidate, only the vote for the top vote-getting independent was included in the total.

In November 2010, independent candidates were elected to the State Senate in Alabama, Kentucky, Maine, and Rhode Island.

In November 2008, voters in Stephenson County, Illinois, elected an independent candidate to the County Board from district K. He was George Kinney, and he defeated his only opponent, the Republican nominee, by a margin of 52.4% to 47.6%. Board members have four year terms. Kinney died on January 31, 2011. Stephenson County provides that when a board member dies, there is no special election. Instead, the party of the deceased nominee chooses a replacement. However, Kinney was an independent, so the Board isn’t sure how to proceed. See this story.