Comments on: Changes to the Florida Election Law

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 04 May 2007 22:51:04 +0000

Yep, it all depends on who can get elected as to whether it’s considered a waste of money.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Fri, 04 May 2007 22:31:42 +0000

Ooooh, I like the notion of someone’s paying the piper! And I have no problem with their calling tunes. Actually, it’s been a while since I’ve earned money in the role of piper… pennywhistle or fife or one-keyed flute or recorder, not bagpipes… but it certainly was fun.

The issue of election funding is sure to come up here after this city election: the law requires that the position be filled now, but that race and one proposition are the only things on the ballot. GOPers will be screaming about the waste of money, but hey, I don’t see them ceding the council seat to Melissa Noriega, the front-running Democrat in the race. 🙂

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 04 May 2007 20:10:09 +0000

They are Republicans – they constantly overstep their authority. They don’t actually have a right to call for a state day of prayer, but that’s another constitutional quirk that was slapped in to annoy Catholics.

My attitude is that if parties want to specify when a primary is to be held, let them pay for the election. The man who pays the piper calls the tune. Florida is like Texas, a big state with no input in the process, but we have always run local elections on primary day, so this changes more than the presidential selection process.

Yep, in 2000, the Reps threatened to call themselves back into session to select electors if the re-count was allowed to continue. Just another brick missing from the full-load that constitutes sanity.

No one knows why the registration thing is in there, it’s probably part of the “anti voter fraud campaign” that wastes time and money. Most people register through the DMV.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Fri, 04 May 2007 18:38:38 +0000

Last things first: by what authority can the Florida Senate declare a “national day of” anything whatsoever? Why, just to be ornery and to make a point, I might decide not to pray on that day!

The business of states jockeying for primary primacy is a puzzle to which I can see only one obvious solution, and I don’t like that solution very much. For the last very many presidential elections, Texas primary voters have had zero influence on the choice of at least the Democratic Party’s candidate, because it’s a done deal already. That’s not right. But absent a federal standard primary date, it’s also wrong to allow the parties to penalize states for seeking advantage.

In your case, of course, primaries don’t matter anyway… didn’t your GOP-run Lege a few years back threaten to assert a constitutional right to ignore the popular vote in the November election and send its own slate of electors anyway? Now that, as Jon Stewart said in the subtitle of America the Book, is “democracy inaction”!

Volunteer deputy voter registrars in Texas (or at least in Harris County) have by law just a few days to return completed registrations directly to a voter registrar’s office. Most groups I know have a person whose job it is to collect the registrations from the field team and take them to the office the same day or the next day, where receipts are provided. The registration forms themselves are bound, pre-numbered and in triplicate… one copy for the real registrar, one for the applicant and one for the volunteer. (Stella and I can claim some credit for raising the fuss a few years ago that was one influence resulting in this tighter system.)