206
Now that (most of) the votes have been tallied, we know 206 Clean Elections candidates are headed for office in Arizona, Maine and North Carolina. These are candidates who aren't accountable to special interests - just the voters. Public Campaign has released the numbers on Clean Elections states and the results are encouraging. In Maine, 84% of its state legislature will now be made up of Clean-elected officials showing the continuing popularity of the system in the state. Meanwhile, votes are still being tallied in Arizona, but we can count re-elected Governor Janet Napolitano and her opponent, Len Munsil among those who ran under Clean Elections, along with 43% of legislative candidates and six out of eight elected statewide officials. There's also good news for North Carolina's judicial public financing system: two-thirds of the eligible candidates ran using the system, including five of the six winners. Read the full release here. Thanks to Nancy Watzman of Public Campaign, Jon Bartholomew of Common Cause, Eric Ehst of the Arizona Clean Elections Institute, Bob Hall of Democracy North Carolina and everyone else who worked to pull this information together.