Florida will hold a special election in April, for state representative, district 64. Only one candidate’s name will be printed on the ballot.
See this story, which explains why this is happening.
One-candidate elections are very common, but it is rare for a special election to have only one name on the ballot, because almost by definition, when there is a special election, there is no incumbent.
Steinberg said. “A write-in candidate has never won.” – Obviously Florida is a long way from Alaska (Lisa Murkowski), so maybe we give her a pass?
Reporters and others in Florida who assert that a write-in candidate in Florida has never won an election have no basis for saying that at all. Florida had write-ins from the beginning of government ballots in 1893 until 1977, when the legislature abolished them. Write-ins came back in 1979 when the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the State Constitution protects the right of anyone to cast a write-in vote. So there were literally hundreds of thousands of elections in Florida history in which write-ins were permitted. There are no published election returns for Florida legislative elections before the 1960’s, and no data base has all the county and city and special district elections. It is extremely likely that write-in candidates have been elected in Florida, but until some historian digs into the question, we can’t prove it.
Richard is right. There have been many write-in candidates elected in Florida. One of the most famous write-in victories occurred in Tampa in 1928 when J.W. Lester, Sr., who had been narrowly defeated in the Democratic primary, was elected county commissioner in Hillsborough County, then the state’s second most populous county.
Lester, who subsequently survived a recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, received 7,990 write-in votes in the general election while defeating Democratic nominee Vincent Nuccio — the man who had narrowly defeated him in the primary — and two ballot-listed independents.
I don’t know of any better historian for political and election matters than Darcy. Thanks and I hope you spread the word to some of these Florida politics reporters.
1. The old commie empire ballots seem to survive in FL.
2. Every election is NEW.
3. See 14th Amdt, Sec. 2 about the RIGHT to VOTE – at least for males.
4. Candidate/incumbent replacement lists — NO more very expensive special elections.
WOW! From the Florida SOS website, there are five special elections coming up. Unfortunately the petition signature deadlines have all passed. Richard, do you know what the requirements are (application, deadline, fee if any) for filing as an official write-in for any of these, or does Florida not require any pre-election filing for write-ins? http://election.dos.state.fl.us/
The deadlines have all passed.
There are no mandatory petitions in Florida any longer (except independent presidential candidates), but the fees are quite high. Declared write-in candidates need no fee but their filing deadline is very early.
Couldn’t Florida save money by just having the state house seat the runner-up in the last election?
Alaska permits write-in candidates to declare their candidacy after the primary, and the statute actually encourages sore losers to run.
Florida requires write-in candidates to file before the primary, since write-in candidates are considered regular candidates in Florida, and determine whether or not a primary is opened up to all voters (this happens when all candidates are affiliated with the same party).
If a candidate is serious about winning, then the filing fee in Florida is not so high ($1200 for a legislative candidate).
Michael Steinberg, who was quoted as saying that write-in candidates never win, is not a reporter, nor can he be considered an objective commentator.
Michael Steinberg in the past has been associated with the Democratic Party, and in 2014 was an attorney for a write-in candidate who was keeping a Democratic primary for another House district closed.
Meanwhile his wife was running as a Republican in another district. Steinberg was the complainant who wanted to keep a write-in opponent from running in the district, since that would have closed the Republican primary in which his wife was running.
Based on a statute which was in blatant violation of the Florida Constitution, the write-in candidate was knocked out of the race, but the court action was too late to open the primary. This led the court to annul the primary, and move both Republicans to the general election ballot.
But then the removal of the write-in candidate from the ballot was reversed (Florida only provides write-in spaces if there are write-in candidates for an office). But this was also too late to be effected.
The legislature decided to simply throw the whole election out and create a vacancy, rather than having the election later thrown out by a court.
Steinberg’s wife did not file for the special election. All the news stories have always quoted her husband as to “her” intentions to run or not, or
that “she” decided not to pay the filing fee.
The write-in candidate again filed for the special election. If he had not, the special election would have been canceled, and the sole candidate elected.
You will note that Steinberg’s full comment was with regard to this special election. The reporter erred in attributing it as “Steinberg said”. It was most likely “Steinberg sneered”.
Florida should use the special election format used in Texas and California.
Three of the special elections are caused by a senator resigning to become President of Florida State University. Two representatives from the district resigned to run to fill the senate vacancy. I don’t know whether they were required to resign to run, but it did permit all three special elections to be held at the same time.
One House special election was caused by no one properly filing for office. The incumbent and only expected candidate failed to get his application properly notarized. The special election was called in September, once it was known that there were no candidates. The primary was in December, with only the special election left.
The other House special election, the one that the news article is about, is due to the legislature canceling the results of the 2014 election. They did this because the election had become hopelessly entangled because of the removal of a write-in candidate from the election, and then a reversal. The special election is being held because a write-in candidate filed. Otherwise with only one candidate, the special election would have been canceled.
So you had odd situations where no one was elected to two house seats in the general election; and three special elections triggered by a senator being appointed president of FSU almost immediately after the general election. He was the sole candidate (remaining) for the position, but he waited for the board of regents to formally appoint him, before he resigned his senate seat.