As August turns to September, this is the second of three plantings on my favorite topics–baseball, fruits, and votes.

In 2005, the month of September was the first full month for this blog. And, for the votes side of things, what a month it was! Elections occurred that month in Japan, Germany, and New Zealand–the three major examples of mixed-member systems. There were also elections in Afghanistan, Poland, and Norway. Each of these had interesting and unusual outcomes. Some were cliffhangers, two were snap elections, one was an opportunity for warlords to earn political respectability, and another resulted in twins becoming president and prime minister. (All of these were themes of entries in this blog; find them by navigating the list of “orchard blocks” on the left sidebar.)

In the world of votes, September, 2007, won’t be anything like 2005. But then few months could be. A quick check of Maximiliano Herrera’s Electoral Calendar (always linked on the right sidebar under Germination >> Votes) shows only Ukraine, on the last day of the month, among those that I know I will be following (and indeed have been following here already). There are also elections in Morocco (on the 7th, and where an Islamist party could emerge as the largest in the weak parliament), Greece (16th, suddenly looming big with protesters in front of parliament over faulty response to the recent fires and allegations that the fires were set by developers wanting the land), Guatemala (9th, both president and assembly, in a campaign that has seen more people killed daily than in the latter phase of the civil war), Madagascar (23rd, for the parliament of a semi-presidential system, and what would happen if you held an election and no one ran?), and Jamaica (3rd, delayed a week by Hurricane Dean and with a wide-open race in a country where few elections have been close).

Ecuador is scheduled to have an election for a constituent assembly on the 30th. And, while not a popular election, the selection of the next president of Lebanon, due on the 25th, is going to be tense.

That’s actually a lot of votes. But it still doesn’t look as big as September, 2005. But I couldn’t keep up with a month like that very often!