On December 1, the District of Columbia Republican Party filed a lawsuit against the D.C. Board of Elections, seeking to claim one of the City Council-at-large seats for a Republican candidate.

Washington, D.C., elects two city council-at-large members every two years. Political parties are only permitted to run one nominee for this office. The goal of this law is to prevent D.C. from having a city council that is composed of nothing but Democrats.

Last month, Democratic nominee Kwame R. Brown won one of the seats. He polled 172,272 votes. The second-place finisher, with 71,720 votes, was Michael A. Brown, listed on the ballot as “Independent”. However, the Republican Party charges that Michael A. Brown should not have been on the ballot with the label “independent”, because, the party argues, he was a de facto Democrat. He had been registered Democratic until May 20, 2008, and had voted in the Democratic presidential primary earlier this year. His campaign literature described himself as “Independent*Democrat”, and he held himself out as a leading representative of the Obama campaign.

If Michael A. Brown was “really” a Democrat, he could not have been on the November ballot, since the Democratic Party was only permitted to run one nominee. If Brown is disqualified, the seat would either go to the ballot-listed Republican nominee, Patrick Mara (who polled 37,447 votes), or to Carol Schwartz, an incumbent Republican who ran a write-in campaign. D.C. hasn’t tallied the write-ins for Schwartz, but 39,493 write-ins were cast for City Council-at-Large, so at this point no one knows who got more votes, Schwartz or Mara.

The Republican Party lawsuit is Kabel v D.C. Bd. of Elections, 08-AA-1513, D.C. Court of Appeals.

Last month, Libertarian Party nominee Damien Ober polled 5,915 votes for “Shadow” U.S. Senator. The District of Columbia holds elections for U.S. Senate, and U.S. House, even though Congress does not recognize the winners of these elections (the election for U.S. House is separate from the election for Delegate to the U.S. House). Although 5,915 votes is only 2.63%, that is the highest vote total that any Libertarian nominee for partisan office in D.C. has ever polled.

Qualified parties in D.C. are those that poll 7,500 votes for any partisan office. The only qualified parties in D.C. history, besides the Democratic and Republican Parties, have been the Statehood Green Party (formerly the D.C. Statehood Party), the Umoja Party, the Socialist Workers Party, and the U.S. Labor Party.

Previous D.C. Libertarian vote totals (other than for president) have been 3,612 for City Council-at-Large in 1988, 980 for Mayor in 1990, and 4,594 for Delegate to the U.S. House in 2000. For president, no Libertarian has ever polled more than 1,104 votes in D.C. Because the D.C. Libertarian Party has never polled 7,500 votes for any office, it has never been a qualified party.

The U.S. Senate shadow election this year had four candidates. The other three were Democrat Paul Strauss, 183,519 votes; Republican Nelson Rimensynder, 18,601 votes; Statehood Green Keith Ware, 16,881 votes.

Libertarians tried to get Dick Heller on the ballot this year for Delegate to U.S. House. His petition failed, and Bob Barr’s petition also failed. If Heller had qualified, he probably would have received 7,500 votes, since the Delegate’s race had no Republican in the race. The vote totals this year for Delegate are Eleanor Holmes Norton, Democrat, 228,376 votes; Statehood Green, Maude Louise Hills, 16,693 votes.

The Wall Street Journal of December 8 has this interesting explanation of the controversy in Canada over the government’s initial attempt to end public campaign funds for political parties (an idea which has now been dropped), and why Canada’s parliament is blocked from meeting until January 2009. Thanks to the Electionlawblog for the link.