On October 18, Massachusetts and Minnesota both held special legislative elections. In the Massachusetts State House race (Berkshire Third District), Green Party nominee Mark C. Miller came close to winning. The Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office does not supply semi-official returns on election night. Unofficial returns reported in the press differ with each other. Some sources say Miller lost by only 92 votes, and some say he lost by 192 votes. He placed second, with either 30% or 32% of the total. The winning Democrat, Tricia Farley-Bouvier, polled 33%. The independent in the race, Pam Malumphy, received 22%, and the Republican nominee, Mark Jester, received 15%.

In Minnesota, in a Minneapolis State House district, the Green Party nominee also placed second. Farheen Hakeem received 22%; Democratic-Farmer-Labor nominee Jeff Hayden won with 68%; Republican nominee Bruce Lundeen received 8%; and Independence Party nominee Matt Brillhart received 2%. Thanks to Uncovered Politics for this news.

Ezra Klein and Matt Miller discuss whether or not a new major political party in the United States would be beneficial, in this post on Ezra Klein’s blog. Both are writers for the Washington Post. Klein does not support the idea of a new party, but Miller does.

Ezra Klein suggests that when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected in California, that was the same type of event as the election of a third party president. His example is not convincing. If Schwarzenegger had run as an independent and been elected, his years in office would have been far different. But, he was elected as a Republican, which did not shake up California at all. California has had many Republican Governors in the past 30 years. In fact, California has had Republican Governors for 23 of the last 29 years. The last time California had a third party Governor, California politics did get shaken up. The last California third party Governor was Hiram Johnson, elected as the Progressive Party nominee in 1914.

On October 18, proponents of privacy for people who have signed petitions appealed Doe v Reed to the Ninth Circuit, even though the state of Washington has already released the names and addresses of people who signed the 2009 referendum petition that caused this lawsuit to be filed. The U.S. District Court yesterday had said there is not enough evidence of harassment to keep the names from being released to the public.

On appeal, the proponents of privacy for petition signers will probably argue that the U.S. District Court erred, because the U.S. District Court said there was little evidence that the signers had been harassed. The problem with this argument is that, until yesterday, the names and addresses had not been released to the public. UPDATE: here is a Los Angeles Times story about the aftermath of the state’s releasing the names and addresses.