On November 13 and 14, the Florida Republican Party held a fund-raising event in Orlando. Earlier the party had passed rules saying only presidential candidates who appeared could be on the presidential primary ballot automatically. Those who did not appear had to pay a filing fee of $25,000, or else obtain signatures of 125 registered Republicans from each U.S. House district.
Fourteen Republican presidential candidates attended and will now be on the March 15, 2016 presidential primary ballot. No one has paid the filing fee or gathered the signatures.
Seven Republicans spoke on Friday, November 13, in this order: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson.
Another seven Republicans spoke on Saturday, November 14, in this order: Rick Santorum, Jim Gilmore, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Carly Fiorina. Because the Paris attacks had occurred between the Friday session and the Saturday session, the Saturday speakers had an opportunity to address the Paris events.
Ben Carson had been the last presidential candidate to accept the invitation to attend the Sunshine Summit. He didn’t announce that he would attend until November 4.
The Florida Republican presidential primary is winner-take-all. Whoever gets the most votes on March 15 gets all the delegates. Never before has any Florida Republican presidential primary had more than nine candidates listed. However, it is unlikely that anyone will claim the Republican voters will be “confused” by using a ballot with 14 names.
You may recall that the large number of candidates in 2000 led to butterfly ballot in Palm Beach, the two page ballot in Duval, and the two column ballot in other counties.
It is unlikely that anyone will claim that Democratic voters were not “confused” by that ballot.
Interesting. A sign that George Pataki, the only major candidate to skip the event, is heading for an early exit?
The cause of voter confusion in Palm Beach County, Florida, in 2000, was that the arrows and the candidates weren’t linked up clearly.
My article in the Election Law Journal of 2006, “How many parties should be on the ballot?” documents the harm that can be done when arrows aren’t lined up clearly with candidates’ names. In 1980, San Mateo County, California ballots had the same flaw. Even though only five candidates were on the ballot for US House, the voters were badly confused and Congressman Bill Royer was unjustly defeated for re-election in the 11th district. I’ll send you a copy of my article if you wish.
The article says “by Richard Winger.” That’s false. You copied this article word for word from beforeitsnews.com
Here is a link to the article: http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2015/11/14-gop-candidates-on-florida-ballot-by-attending-sunshine-summit-3075338.html
You should at the very least include a link and give the author, “American Freedom by Barbara” credit for this.
Richard,
It seems your article was published at least an hour earlier than the one I linked.
I apologize for the accusation.
Thank you for making me aware that “Before its news” had picked up my story.
This is your claim?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Butterfly_Voters_View.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Butterfly_large.jpg
Even it is true, the underlying cause was the number of candidates.
I would like to see the article.
Thanks for asking to see my article. It is now in the postal mail to you.