The Colorado Secretary of State will not appeal last week’s decision on the validity of write-in votes, when the voter forgets or doesn’t know to fill in the bubble next to the name that voter has just written in. See this story. The “undervotes” in the State House race in district 61 will now get a recount using human beings. They may or may not find enough ballots in which the voter wrote in “Kathleen Curry” but didn’t fill in the bubble, to give the lead to Curry, the write-in independent candidate who is running for re-election.
On November 3, two members of the U.S. House of Representatives filed a federal lawsuit to overturn the Florida redistricting measures that passed last week. See this story. The two members are Democrat Corrine Brown and Republican Mario Diaz-Balart.
The measures do not remove the power to draw district boundaries from the legislature, but they require the legislature to draw plans that do not favor any particular incumbent, and also plans that do not favor any particular political party. The two plaintiffs argue that this violates the Voting Rights Act. The case is Brown v State of Florida, southern district, 1:10-cv-23968. Thanks to Justin Levitt and Rick Hasen for the case name and case number.
The Green Party national office has released a list of party members who were elected or re-elected last week. As noted at this site earlier, Ben Chipman was elected to the Maine legislature, and the party won three important elections in California: in Richmond; Mendocino County; and Hollister.
Additionally, three Greens (Lisa Stephens, Jesse Townley, and Pam Webster) were re-elected to the Berkeley rent stabilization board; Robert Deutsch was re-elected to the Alameda Healthcare District; J. B. Shoats was elected to the Washington, D.C., Advisory Neighborhood Commission; Anita Stewart was elected to the Hillsborough, Florida, Soil and Water Conservation District; Raymond Meyer was re-elected to the Lucas County, Iowa, Health Center Board; John Anton was re-elected to the Portland, Maine, city council; Michael Beilstein and Richard Hervey were re-elected to the Corvallis, Oregon, city council.
The Libertarian Party national office has also released a list of party members who were elected or re-elected last week. Cheryl Heacox won a partisan election to the Clay Township Board in Wayne County, Indiana. In non-partisan elections: Kathy Woolsey was elected to the Charleston County, South Carolina, Soil and Water Commission; Jim Culberson was elected to the Sebastian Inlet Tax District in Florida; Ron Skrutski, Tom Clark, and Kim Hawk were elected to the Lee County, Florida, Soil and Water Conservation District; and Scott Stewart was elected to the Pima County, Arizona Community College Board.
As was already reported, the Constitution Party won four partisan elections for local office in Nevada. Also a member of the Constitution Party was elected to the Morgan County, Utah Commission, a non-partisan post.
Last week, Rebecca Williamson, Socialist Workers Party nominee for U.S. House in Iowa’s 3rd district, polled 2.61% of the vote. The 3rd district includes Des Moines. That is the highest percentage that any party with “Socialist” in its name has received for U.S. House in Iowa since 1918. Williamson had a Democratic and a Republican opponent. The Socialist Workers Party has been running candidates in Iowa since 1948.
Williamson participated in a debate with her major party opponents that was broadcast on Iowa Public Television.
The only other Socialist Workers Party nominee for U.S. House who was on the ballot anywhere in the U.S. was Roger Calero, who ran in New York’s 15th district. Election night returns showed that he was polling 2.51% in a four-candidate race. His opponents were from the Democratic, Republican, and Independence Parties.
Last week, the voters of Rhode Island’s 17th State Senate district re-elected independent Senator Edward J. O’Neill to the State Senate. See this story. He defeated his only opponent, Democrat Linda Noble, by 54.5%-45.5. Neill had also been elected as an independent in 2008. When he was elected in 2008, he had been the first independent elected to the Rhode Island State Senate since 1964.
Thanks very much to Morgan Daybell for helping me find instances at which independent legislators were elected or re-elected last week. It appears that independents were elected to state legislators in 2010 in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Vermont. We are still waiting to see if one was elected in Colorado. Whether this list ultimately contains 9 states or 10 states, it appears more states elected independents to state legislatures this year than in any previous year in at least sixty years.
Louisiana and Virginia also have independent state legislators, but those two states didn’t have legislative elections this year.