It appears that the Green Party did poll enough votes for Nebraska Secretary of State to be on the ballot automatically in 2008. However, the results won’t be completely known until December 4. Not all of the provisional ballots have been processed. The preliminary results show that the Green candidate got 27,180 votes, and needed 27,034.
In 2006, the Green Party completed 15 statewide petitions to place itself, or its statewide nominees, on the ballot successfully. Six of them overcame hurdles of 10,000 or more signatures: Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia. Although the Independent Green Party of Virginia is not affiliated with the national Green Party, it is the only party with “Green” in its name that has been on the ballot in Virginia for the past 4 years, so it is included in this list.
The Libertarian Party successfully completed 7 statewide petitions to place itself, or its statewide nominees, on the ballot this year, and only one of them was in a state that required 10,000 or more signatures (that was New York).
The Constitution Party successfully completed 3 statewide petitions to place itself, or its statewide nominees, on the ballot this year, as did the Socialist Workers Party and the Working Families Party.
As noted earlier, the 13th district U.S. House race in Florida was extremely close. Only 300 votes separate the Democrat and the Republican candidates; no other candidates ran. In Sarasota County, Florida, 13% of the people who voted, failed to vote for U.S. House. This picture of the electronic screen ballots shows why. Note pages one and two. In the other three counties in the 13th district, more than 97% of the voters who came to the polls voted for U.S. House. The other three counties did not have this bad design. Also, among the Sarasota County absentee voters who voted by mail (and thus were not subject to this bad design) more than 98% voted for U.S. House.
Since Sarasota County voters who did vote for U.S. House were disproportinately more supportive of the Democratic candidate than the other counties in the district, it is very likely that this poor design cost the Democrats a seat.
In last week’s election, the Constitution Party nominee for U.S. House, 3rd district, outpolled the Democratic nominee in two counties, Millard and Sanpete Counties. The Utah 3rd district is represented by Republican Chris Cannon. The Constitution Party nominee, Jim Noorlander, had defected from the Republican Party earlier this year to become the Constitution Party nominee.
An earlier posting that said the Nevada Libertarian Party had not polled enough votes to remain on the ballot was erroneous. The party’s candidate for Washoe County Assessor, Tom Koziel, polled 5,852 votes. The law required any nominee to poll votes equal to 1% of the total statewide congressional vote, which this year equalled 5,746.
The irony is that the party (which nominates by convention) had originally not nominated anyone for Washoe County Assessor. Later, the state chair of the party, Brendon Trainor, sent in an amended list of nominees, including Koziel. State law gave Trainor authority to add additional nominees to the list. However, other party activists did not agree with that additional nomination, and were so irritated with Koziel’s supplemental nomination that Trainor was removed as state chair.
