Preliminary election returns for the special U.S. House election in California’s 10th district are:
Democrat John Garamendi 55.54%; Republican Dave Harmer 39.77%; Green Jeremy Cloward 1.99%; Peace & Freedom Mary McIlroy 1.48%; American Independent Party Jerry Denham 1.23%.
When this district last voted, in November 2008, the results had been: Democratic 65.20%; Republican 31.10%; Peace & Freedom 3.70%.
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The three minor party candidates improved on their performance in the blanket primary. In California, special elections are held without party nominations, and any voter may voter for any candidate regardless of party affiliation of the voter or candidate.
This same freedom to support and vote for any candidate will be extended to all but presidential elections if California voters approve Top 2.
Post #2 is not accurate. The June 2010 California ballot measure implements SB 6, which eliminates write-in votes for the general election, and also makes it far more difficult for parties to retain “qualified” status. The existing law requires parties to poll 2% in a midterm year in order to remain ballot-qualified. SB 6 would eliminate that, so the only parties that could remain ballot-qualified would be those that meet the far more stringent standard for new parties to qualify, which will probably be about 100,000 registered members. That would certainly eliminate the Peace & Freedom Party, which only has 58,000 registrants, and might eliminate the Libertarian Party, which has about 82,000. So the measure would even impact presidential elections.