Florida has closed primaries in general. But Florida has a blanket primary, for races in which only members of one party are running for that particular office. In other words, if a state legislative race has three Republicans in the primary, and there are no other candidates for that seat in any other party’s primary nor in the general election, then all voters (not just registered Republicans) get to vote in the primary for that one office.

Florida has many such races. Over half of this year’s legislative elections fit this pattern.

On August 9, a group of five Sarasota Democratic voters filed a lawsuit to expand the use of Florida’s blanket primary. They want to vote in the Republican primary for a particular County Commission race, because no Democrats are running, and no minor party or independent candidates are running, so the race will effectively be settled in the Republican primary. The reason this particular race is not open to all voters, however, is because someone filed to be a write-in candidate in the general election. The voters who filed the lawsuit say the race should be open because the write-in candidate has no hope of being elected.

However, two days after filing the lawsuit, all the plaintiffs dropped the case.