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, 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.

West Virginia State Senator Earl Tomblin is scheduled to become acting Governor of West Virginia as soon as Governor Joe Manchin resigns to become a U.S. Senator.  This story covers a press conference held by Senator Tomblin.  He has no plans to ask the legislature to pass a bill providing for a special gubernatorial election, but says if there is a public desire for such a special election, then he would support that idea.

West Virginia does not elect a Lieutenant Governor, and the State Constitution says the President of the State Senate becomes Governor when the Governor leaves office in the middle of a gubernatorial term.  The Constitution says a special election should be held to fill a vacant gubernatorial seat if there is more than one year to go in the term, but does not say when the special election should be held.

Senator Tomblin says he will remain a State Senator, but he will not vote in the State Senate.