RationalWiki:What is going on with the elections?/2018

December 2018
PM Hasina wins the violence-marred Bangladesh elections as opposition rejects polls. As if the North Carolina 9th District election controversy couldn't get weirder, it does. The North Carolina Bipartisan State Board of Elections & Ethics Enforcement, investigating if fraud took place in the November 2018 election has been dissolved by a panel of judges who found it unconstitutional, stemming from an unrelated legal challenge that started in 2016. Further, Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has stated the House will not seat Mark Harris when the new session starts on 3 January, 2019. A new board is expected to start operations on 31 January, 2019. Russia, China, and Iran sought to influence the 2018 US midterm elections. North Carolina's 9th Congressional District results have still not been certified, after allegations that an individual went around collecting ballots from absentee voters' houses, some blank or unsealed, from voters. A hearing is scheduled by the state election board, on December 21st, 2018 to further discuss the matter.

November 2018
Spain Socialists Dealt Blow in Andalusia, Far-Right Emerges. Senator wins runoff and is reelected, despite accusations of blatant racism. Because Mississippi. A referendum to legalize same-sex marriage in Taiwan fails. Democrats have taken all seven House seats in the historically Republican stronghold Orange County. New Ager Marianne Williamson is exploring a 2020 presidential bid. With friends like these... Democrat Kyrsten Sinema wins the Arizona Senate race. Recounts have been ordered for the Florida governor, Senate and agricultural commissioner races. UPDATE: Republican Ron DeSantis has been declared governor-elect while the latter two races will be recounted by hand. UPDATE: Republican Gov. Rick Scott has been declared winner of the Senate race. German MEP Manfred Weber is chosen as the centre-right European People’s Party spitzenkandidat, the candidate for President of the European Commission. As the EPP is the most likely be the largest party in European Parliament, he is likely to replace Jean-Claude Juncker after the European parliamentary elections in 2019. Scott Walker loses his bid for a third term as Governor of Wisconsin. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, has bested Trump-backed far-right candidate Kris Kobach in the race for Kansas governor. Of the Republicans, the pro-Putin & Russian Dana Rohrabacher [https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/07/election-results-2018-dana-rohrabacher-harvey-rouda/1917374002/ has lost his Californian seat in Congress. However, it was tight as he has lost by fewer than 2000 votes, 89,068 to 91,750.] The Democrats narrowly take back the House while the GOP expands its majority in the Senate. A list of firsts for women in the 2018 midterm election.

October 2018
Bolsonaro has utilized fake news on social media such as WhatsApp to win the election in Trump style. The far-right Jair Bolsonaro wins the Brazilian presidency. Irony meter hits 12.5 as Trump calls for more civility in politics. "Those engaged in political arena must stop treating political opponents as being morally defective," he said."No one should carelessly compare political opponents to historic villains, which is done often," he added. Seriously?? The Liberals lose their majority in the lower house of Australian Parliament. Brazil's far-right presidential candidate has narrowly missed an outright victory and now heads to a runoff vote. Georgia's Secretary of State Brian Kemp is accused of blocking 53,000 voter registrations as he runs for governor. The Supreme Court votes to allow North Dakota to enforce voter ID laws.

September 2018
Polling shows that the Democrats hold a 12-point lead in congressional preference among registered voters. In the continuing adventures of the GOP's image problem regarding sexual assault/harassment, comes Jim Knoblach stopping his campaign for Minnesota state rep after allegations from his 23 year old daughter that he abused her from age 9 to 21. The Swedish election ends with neither the center-left or center-right coalition winning a majority and the Sweden Democrats winning a small gain to receive 17.6% of the vote. A few identitarian activists and Farage loyalists in Ireland are trying to create a localised version of UKIP, with the “Irexit Freedom Party”. This is despite support for the EU is around 90% in Ireland. Despite what most outside journalists think, the biggest issue in the upcoming Swedish general election isn't migration or asylum, it is climate.

August 2018
The big story from Tuesday's primaries: Andrew Gillum, the Bernie Sanders-endorsed progressive mayor of Tallahassee, scored a major upset victory in the Florida Democratic gubernatorial primary, bucking a trend of the state party nominating centrists for Governor who inevitably go down in defeat to the Republicans. Less surprising: the hard-right Ron DeSantis won the Republican gubernatorial primary, and wasted no time throwing racist dog whistles at Gillum (who is black). Georgia is still insisting that its elections are fine, despite one precinct's turnout for its primaries being 243%! The record for the most female gubernatorial nominees in a single year in the US has been broken. The Ohio special congressional election ends with the Republican candidate narrowly leading over the Democratic one, as the Trump-backed candidate very narrowly leads the Kansas GOP governor primary.

July 2018
Taking a page from the dictators' playbook, President Trump warns of the violence and destruction of civil liberties that would happen if the Republicans don't win the November election. Violence in Zimbabwe as the ruling Zanu-PF claims victory with a two-thirds majority. The Cambodian ruling party claims victory in an election marred by voter intimidation and lacking any significant opposition. Imran Khan wins the Pakistani premiership amidst allegations of rigging. The Californian Democratic Party snubs five-term US Senator Feinstein in favor of endorsing democratic socialist challenger Kevin de Leon. Leftist candidate Lopez Obrador wins the Mexican presidency in a landslide.

June 2018
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a young Democratic Socialist, defeats incumbent Joe Crowley in the primary for an important New York house seat. The Supreme Court upholds all but one Texan electoral district in the result of a lawsuit alleging racist gerrymandering, as well as throwing out a ruling about North Carolinian gerrymandering. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claims victory with unofficial results in the Turkish election California will vote in November whether to split into 3 states

May 2018
The votes of an entire Iraqi electoral district were destroyed in a fire. Maine will be testing ranked voting in statewide elections. The Conservatives win Ontario after fifteen years of uninterrupted Liberal rule.

Eight US states have held their primaries, including California.

Nathan Larson, Virginia independent congressional candidate admits he’s a pedophile to reporter in phone interview. Among other things wants to legalize incest and child pornography. He also had a 3 year old daughter who is, thankfully, not in his custody anymore. RationalWiki veterans may remember him as Tisane. Right-winger Ivan Duque and leftist Gustavo Petro head to a runoff vote in Colombia.

Maduro was re-elected amidst low turnout of 46.1% and massive corruption. Supporters of a Californian neo-Nazi are sending antisemitic robocalls accusing his opponent of being a "traitorous Jew". A man running for office in Dallas acknowledged that he set up his trust fund to encourage his children to marry opposite-sex white Christians. The Democrats' poll advantage has shrunken dramatically. Despite dismal approval ratings at approximately 20%, Maduro is expected to win re-election due to rigging and low opposition turnout. Iraq is holding its first election since the fall of the Islamic State. Prime Minister Abadi faces the stiffest competition from a party linked to Iran. UPDATE: Anti-American, populist, and Shia cleric, and his party has won the election

Former coal executive Don Blankenship, who served a year in prison for safety violations in a 2010 disaster that killed 29 miners, loses the West Virginia GOP Senate primary after a bitter, racially charged campaign. He was such an awful candidate that even Trump urged voters to reject him. Predictably, he blamed "the establishment" for his loss. Oppositon wins the general election in Malaysia, putting an end to 60 years of virtual autocracy which spawned the infamous racist policy Bumiputra. Lebanon is holding its first elections in nine years. UPDATE: Unofficial tallies present strong showings for Hezbollah and Amal.

April 2018
In a very hostile political climate, four Conservative candidates have been suspended ahead of the local elections. One for antisemitic and AIDS jokes; one for calling for returning the death penalty to execute homosexuals; one for claiming the Labour Party spreads STIs, and one for complaining that racial slurs aren't acceptable anymore. A Republican won the Arizona special election, though by a much smaller margin than normal. Democratic Party files suit alleging Russia, the Trump campaign, and WikiLeaks conspired to disrupt the 2016 election The Azerbaijani king president has secured his third term.

Hungary's dictator Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wins his third term in power. The Malaysian parliament will be dissolved tomorrow with plans to hold an election within 60 days as constitutionally required. Voters in the Alaskan city-borough of Anchorage have voted for a second term for the Democratic-leaning mayor Ethan Berkowitz and rejection by a local referendum for introducting a bathroom bill (but by a thin margin). Sierra Leone has declared its former junta head president-elect. Sisi has secured his second term as dictator president with 97% of the vote and a remarkably low turnout of 41%. Carlos Alvarado Quesada wins Costa Rica's presidential election, after promising legalisation of same-sex marriage.

March 2018
A Democratic victory would require a historic upset due to gerrymandering. Sierra Leone begins its presidential runoff with the incumbent term limited out of running. The Egyptian "election" has ended with Sisi poised to win. Political repression in Egypt worsens as the "election" approaches. Cambridge Analytica was also involved in the 2013 and 2017 Kenyan elections. Scott Lively has vowed to establish "separation of LGBT and state" if elected. A neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier has won the GOP primaries after running unopposed for an Illinois congressional seat. (Don't worry, it's a very blue district.) Putin won the "election" as we all expected. Government television in Crimea churns out anti-Western propaganda in the final days before the Russian "election", warning that the West will take low turnout as a sign of weakness and use it to exterminate Crimea's ethnic Russians. Republicans try to explain the Pennsylvanian electoral upset by claiming Lamb is a DINO. Democrat Conor Lamb won in a major electoral upset in a deep-red district. The Republicans are struggling to hold on to  Putin admits that Russians hacked the election, but claimed it was da Joos and ethnic minorities and the gov't had nothing to do with it. In Italy, division between the north and south has been widened by the election. If elections were held today, five Senate Democrats would lose their seats. Exit polls predict a hung parliament, with the right coalition gaining the most seats and the Five Star Movement being the largest single party. UPDATE: Results pretty much confirm exit polls. Midterm blues: If an election were held today, the Conservatives would beat out the Liberals, as a result of Trudeau's botched visit to India. The far-right Alternative for Germany is on the rise due to Merkel defectors and non-voters.

February 2018
A Democrat getting outspent 17-1 is now neck and neck in deep-red Pennsylvania A Democrat wins a Kentucky House seat where Trump won 72% of the vote. A Democrat has won a Missouri state house seat in a district Trump won in a landslide.

January 2018
The Presidential election in Czechia comes to a close with the election of Milos Zeman, who fought on an anti-immigration/pro-Putin platform. Disgraced former sheriff Joe Arpaio is running for Senate. Oprah Winfrey is considering about running for President according to everyone except Oprah...  so far.....