Joe Brown, a former Tampa Tribune columnist, has this op-ed in that newspaper, advocating that write-in space on Florida ballots be abolished.
Write-ins in Florida are already severely restricted. No one can be a write-in candidate unless he or she files a declaration of write-in candidacy five months before the general election. Write-ins in primaries are not permitted.
Brown, and other Florida commentators, frequently express ire that write-in candidates appear to be responsible for closing certain primaries for partisan office that would otherwise be open to all registered voters. The Florida Constitution provides that when there are no candidates for a particular partisan office except members of just one party, then the primary for that particular office shall be open to all voters. But when a write-in candidate files for that office in the general election, then that constitutional provision doesn’t apply, and the primary for that office is closed.
Florida newspaper columnists and reporters consistently fail to grasp that the real problem in Florida is that so many partisan elections only have candidates from one particular party. This is because the Florida filing fees are so staggeringly high. If Florida had modest candidate filing fees, more people from different parties would file, and one-party elections would be far less likely. Florida filing fees are 6% of the office’s annual salary. Except for Georgia, which has 3% filing fees, no other state has filing fees in excess of 2% of the office annual salary.
14th Amdt, Sec. 2 is still a part of the nearly DEAD USA Const.
abridge RIGHT to VOTE.
How many write in votes in 1866-1868 ???
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NO primaries.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
The filing fee for state legislative candidates in Montana is $15, and this is waived if a candidate files a notice that he can’t afford it (no in lieu of petition needed). And yet not all legislative races have candidates from all parties.
Once again, you confuse correlation with causality.
The fundamental reason why segregated partisan primaries in Florida are not open to all voters is because Florida has segregated partisan primaries.
If Florida were to adopt Top 2, the filing deadline for write-in candidates would only be two months prior to the election in which voters may vote for them.
Yes, a write-in candidate *does* close the other party’s primary. I explain how I closed one Republican party primary early on in my 2004 McSweeney’s feature, “Diary of a Congressional Candidate in Florida’s Fourth Congressional District”: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-diary
That’s a feature, not a bug.