Looks like we called this one a win too soon, I’m sorry to say. The Santa Fe New Mexican reported on 11/4 that Jerome Block Jr. won with 56.2% to Rick Lass’ 43.8%.

This frustrating turn of events may be explained largely by the phenomenon of straight-party voting, something that I only recently learned exists in certain states. I’d bet that the margin of victory in this race was decided by people who wanted to vote for America’s first African-American president and voted straight Democrat without even thinking about the Public Regulation Commission. There was a group called Democrats for Lass that tried to educate voters how to vote straight-party but still choose Lass over Block, but sadly, not enough people were paying attention.

That’s the problem – not enough attention. It appears that basically everyone who paid attention to this race, regardless of political affiliation, preferred Lass to Block. All the major newspapers and several prominent Democratic activists endorsed Lass enthusiastically, and even most Democratic officials declined to endorse Block or even mention him – they consider him an embarrassment. Lass has a reputation of being serious and competent; Block is known as a corrupt, incompetent thug who feels entitled to his office because his father and grandfather held it as well.

It’s pretty clear to me that we should require people to pay enough attention to at least glance at the name of the person they’re voting for, which might trigger a momentary thought like “wait, did I hear that this dude is like, in trouble with the law? Maybe I’ll vote for this other dude, G-Rick. He’s got a better name anyway. Yeah, G!”

Get out the list of needed election reforms, and add this one: Abolish straight-party voting.

At any rate, all the info I can find online indicates that Rick Lass lost his race. Am I wrong? It would be wonderful indeed if he were to have won in his race!

I’d love to see Cynthia and Rosa run again as Greens in the sort of local races that Greens are good at winning.

For the lowdown on some particularly exciting Green wins (huzzah for Rick Lass!) check out http://network.greenchange.org/groups/election08