On October 18, Jim Norman appealed last week’s Florida state court ruling that removed him from the ballot. He won the August Republican primary for State Senate in the 12th district, but a Leon County Circuit Court then said his campaign finance reports are dishonest and disqualified him. See this story. The story also explains that the Republican Party is making plans to choose a new nominee.
UPDATE: see this story, which interviews some voters and reveals that many have already voted and cast a write-in vote for Kevin Ambler. Unfortunately for those voters, those write-ins won’t be counted because Ambler didn’t file a declaration of write-in candidacy by the July deadline (the primary hadn’t even been held yet). Someone ought to sue to overturn the early deadline for filing as a declared write-in candidate. Florida has the nation’s earlest such deadline, by far. In 1979 the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the Florida Constitution protects the right of voters to cast a write-in vote. That case was Smith v Smathers, 372 So.2d 427.
Is the deadline BEFORE the primary to NOT have primary *sore losers* on the general election ballots ?
The Florida Constitution requires that candidates file financial disclosure (this is the grounds for vacating Norman’s nomination). That would become meaningless if some candidates could avoid filing, or file so late that they would not be be subject to public scrutiny.
ANY State in American history since 1776 or even since Bush v. Gore in 2000 that did NOT 1 or more election law cases in each election cycle ???
i.e. Where is that *Model Election Law* to reduce the growing C-H-A-O-S in elections ???
— with the entire system apparently having a worse and worse political nervous breakdown with each election cycle.