The December 10 issue of the Los Angles Times has this op-ed, in support of Instant-Runoff Voting, authored by Blair Bobier.
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The vote for president in Grant County, North Dakota, last month, was: McCain 587, Barr 297, Obama 280, Baldwin 148, Nader 17. There were also 22 write-ins, but no one made a record of whom they were cast for.
These results were verified by a phone call to the County Auditor (in North Dakota, county Auditors handle elections). The person who answered the phone retrieved the records, looked at them for about a minute, and then said they are correct. These returns are on the North Dakota Secretary of State’s webpage, but sometimes errors occur. But that doesn’t seem to be the case in this instance.
Grant County has four precincts. Further research will be undertaken to see if the unusually strong vote for Barr and Baldwin was centered in one particular part of the county. Thanks to Austin Cassidy for this interesting news. Grant County in past elections had been moderately more supportive of the Libertarian Party, and also of the Constitution Party, then other North Dakota counties, but not markedly so. Grant County is in southwestern North Dakota. North Dakota has always been one of the strongest states in the country for presidential candidates who are opposed to military action overseas.
In 2004, Grant County voted overwhelmingly for President George W. Bush.
The nationwide 2008 vote for U.S. House reveals that the Republican Party got 43.0%, the Democratic Party got 53.9%, and “others” got 3.1%. The Republican share of the vote is the lowest either major party has polled nationwide for U.S. House, back to 1976. In 1976 the Republicans received 42.0%.
In 2006, the Republican Party got 44.8%; in 2004 it got 49.9%; in 2002, 50.6%; in 2000, 48.0%; in 1998, 48.6%; in 1996, 48.5%; in 1994, 52.0%; in 1992, 45.2%.
On December 9, an attorney for the Center for Competitive Democracy wrote a letter to the District of Columbia Board of Elections, and asked that the Board tally the votes for the declared write-in candidates. The most prominent such candidates are Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin.
The letter points out that in 1974, the D.C. Court of Appeals not only ordered the Board to print write-in space on the November ballot for president, but also said such write-ins should be tallied, for those write-in presidential candidates who file a slate of presidential elector candidates in advance of the election. Barr and Baldwin did so, but the Board still says it need not count such write-ins. The Board has never addressed the 1974 precedent, which is Kamins v D.C. Board of Elections, 324 A 2d 187.
Based on official election returns in 47 states and D.C., and unofficial returns in California, Ohio, and Tennessee, the combined minor party and independent candidate vote for U.S. House last month amounted to 3.13% of the total vote cast for U.S. House. That is higher than the “other” vote for U.S. House had been in 2006 and 2004, but not as high as it had been in 2002 and 2000.
The “other” vote for U.S. House in 2000 was 4.17%, the highest it had been since 1938. In 2002 it declined to 3.58%, and in 2004 it declined again, to 2.75%. It declined a third time in 2006, to 2.49%.
The November 2008 U.S. House vote is: Democrats 53.90%; Republicans 42.96%; Libertarians .89%; independent candidates .80%; Greens .49%; Working Families .24%; Constitution .15%; other parties .55%. These figures could change slightly by the time all the official returns are known.