On October 20, the Florida Secretary of State asked the Republican Party to choose a new nominee for the State Senate, 12th district. See this story. Jim Norman’s name will be on the ballot as the Republican nominee, and no one else’s name will be on the ballot. But the polling places will have signs explaining that a vote for Jim Norman will be treated as a vote for whomever the party nominates.
There is write-in space on the ballot, but only two declared write-in candidates will have their write-ins counted.
Last week a state court had ruled that Norman is not eligible to be a candidate, because he broke campaign finance laws. Norman is appealing, and if the Appeals Court reverses the lower court, presumably the votes cast for Norman will then be treated as votes for him.
In the opinion of Ballot Access News, this particular election is a sham election. If Florida had wise procedures, anyone should be permitted to file as a declared write-in candidate this week, so that the election would give voters a real choice. UPDATE: this article reveals that the Republican Party has contributed substantially to help Norman pay his attorneys.
Too many sham elections to count — since the party hacks in the States do NOT have 100 percent laws for ALL possibilities regarding vacancies / replacements.
Where is that Model Election Law — written by an army of Election Law profs in Ivory Towers ???
The South East Super-state Parliament Circuit #5
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, plus the territories of Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands
http://www.usparliament.org/ss5.htm
Rob Elliott [Independent], Michael Fox [Independent], Milton Kowinowski [Independent], Darryl W. Perry [Boston Tea], Josh Ondich [Conservative Populist], Tim Mason [Green], Eric Stevenson [Pizza], S.M.Basford [Republican], Jack Clayton [What’s A Matter U], John Buchanan [Citizen Candidate], C.J. Smith [Pot], Russ Laundry [No Illegal Alien], Brian Moore [Socialist USA], Jason Rogoski [Whig]
Has a vote for one candidate whose name is on the ballot ever officially be deem to count for another candidate before?
#2 That is actually Florida law in cases where a party has replaced its nominee after the ballot has been printed. It was used when a US Representative resigned due to claims that he had sexually harassed House pages. In that case, it was a hard campaign sale – go ahead and vote for the guy who was hitting on 17 YO, the vote will really count for someone else (he lost).
In most places when a candidate who is on the ballot is disqualified, it is treated as if he were disqualified after the election – which would simply result in a vacancy.
Florida is the only state that ever deems a vote for one person to be a vote for someone else. By contrast, when the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial nominee resigned from the ticket in 1990 only a week before the election, the state reprinted all its ballots with the new nominee. But absentee votes cast early, in favor of the original Republican nominee, were not deemed to be votes for the new Republican nominee. It is orwellian to tell a voter that if he or she votes for one individual, his vote really counts for some other individual.
Ballot Access News has failed to address the issue that Florida has financial disclosure requirements in their State Constitution, that are qualifications for holding office. What you are proposing is that candidates could bypass this qualification.
In addition, Florida only prints a write-in space if there are write-in candidates; and that is also a consideration when determining whether a candidate is unopposed. What Florida could do, is follow the example of Texas, and post the names of the write-in candidates in each voting booth.
Or better yet would be to let each house of the legislature rule on all election contests including primaries. Or Florida could switch to a true Open primary, like California, Washington, Nebraska, and Louisiana have.
The Florida regime has among the EVIL worst gerrymander districts for both houses of the FL legislature — thus the orwellian machinations.
Younger folks — See 1984 [book] by George Orwell.
Perhaps a 2010 revision of the book is necessary now ???