The New York State Senate now has a Democratic majority for the first time since the 1950’s. The struggle of the two major parties for control of the Senate in this election year was mirrored by a shadow struggle between the Working Families and Independence Parties of New York. Both minor parties gave everything they had to help one of the major parties. In the case of the Working Families Party, that involved canvassing extensively for Democrats. In the case of the Independence Party, that meant an all-out effort to help Republicans. See this article about the Working Families effort and this article about the Independence Party’s effort. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the links.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Where can we view vote totals for the Working Families’ line?
We must wait for the official returns. The news organizations that gather preliminary vote results don’t bother to collect the separate votes cast (for fusion candidates). They just gather their total vote. New York typically doesn’t finish its official canvass until the middle of December.
While both the WFP and IP are centrally controlled and cross-endorse major party candidates based on the decisions of a few party leaders at the top, the similarities end there. The WFP is concerned with pushing the Democrats in a more progressive direction, so it’s safe to assume that almost everyone there was happy to see the Democrats take control of the Senate. The IP on the other hand, was originally meant to be a third force and not favor one major party over the other. While the bosses backed the Republicans, at the grassroots there was much more diverse opinions, with some happy about the Democratic change thinking it may break a stalemate and others not caring too much one way or the other on the theory that whichever party is in charge the basics will not change due to a small shift in party power. There was very little IP grassroots work for the Republicans like the canvassing the WFP did for the Democrats.
You can find initial results at the Suffolk County BOE here: http://www.co.suffolk.ny.us/boe/eleres/08ge/ There is a link about our web-site as well: http://www.onthewilderside.com
I believe that after the automatic recanvass, third party lines especially will pick up votes. But, this does have an initial counting of votes on third party lines.
-Kimberly Wilder
Green Party of Suffolk