Election Day, 2015 has come and gone, with new lessons to learn.

Six municipalities held ranked choice voting elections for city offices, giving voters greater choices and stronger winners. Highlights include the defeat of incumbents in San Francisco, positive campaigns in Saint Paul, and more accurate representation of those who want change in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Louisiana also used ranked choice voting ballots for its qualified overseas voters, ensuring that they could participate in both rounds of its state elections, even though there wasn't time to mail and return a new ballot.

State legislative elections took place in Virginia, where their overwhelmingly uncompetitive districts further demonstrated the power of partisanship in winner-take-all districts, even in an odd-year election. State elections also took place in Louisiana, though the overwhelming majority of its state legislative seats were chosen in its first round of election in October, with most of the November runoffs featuring two members of the same political party facing off against each other. New Jersey's state legislative elections also demonstrate how strong a force partisanship can be, though it's use of multi-winner districts did encourage more competition. New Jersey is one of ten states electing state legislative seats in multi-winner districts.