This past Saturday, the Australian Labor Party took control of the Western Australian state parliament after more than eight years of Liberal Party leadership. In a historic swing election, voters emphatically rejected the ruling Liberal-National coalition, with outgoing premier Colin Barnett conceding the race less than three hours after the polls closed. Support for the popular minor party, One Nation, was low as well.

Nearly two weeks after it started, Wisconsin’s presidential recount is complete. The recount, which was requested by Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein and independent candidate Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente ahead of Wisconsin’s November 25th filing deadline, yielded a small vote gain (131 votes of the nearly 2.8 million cast) for president-elect Donald Trump.

By October 31st, over 22 million people had cast early votes for the 2016 presidential election. In some states, like Texas and California, the number of early votes was up substantially from 2012. Despite a rise in the number of early votes cast, early returns from the November 8th election suggested turnout was actually at a low, with some outlets reporting that voter turnout was nearly the lowest it had been in a presidential election in 20 years.

Tennessee’s August 4th primary featured a particularly brutal battle for the Republican nomination in the Volunteer State’s 8th Congressional district. In an opportunity to claim Republican Stephen Fincher’s open seat, thirteen Republican candidates put their hat in the ring for their party’s nomination, with former U.S. Attorney David Kustoff coming out on top. But, the crowded field of candidates led to highly fractured results, and Kustoff’s victory came with only 27 percent of the vote.

Like many social phenomena, voter turnout can be measured in different ways. Without a label associated with turnout, it is quite easy to confuse the level of voter participation and make misleading inferences about our participatory health. Haley Smith goes behind the numbers of voter turnout.

Virginia's 2015 state legislative elections highlighted  problems with winner-take-all elections in single-winner districts. More than two-thirds  of seats were uncontested, 100% of incumbents won, and outcomes aligned nearly perfectly with the underlying partisan lean. Ranked choice voting in multi-winner  districts would transform voter choice and fairness of representation.