On November 18, the Florida legislature determined that the November 4 election for State House district 64 was not legal. As a result, a special election is needed. See this story.
Florida law says that when all the candidates for a particular partisan office are from the same party, then the primary for that particular office is open to all voters. In the case of District 64, there was a dispute over whether a write-in candidate who filed for the race was a valid candidate. If he was a valid candidate, then the primary should have been open only to Republican voters. If the write-in candidate was not a valid candidate, then the primary should have been open to all voters.
The write-in candidate did not live in the district. A trial court ruled that he was not a valid candidate, and an open primary was held. Before the primary was held, but after the ballots had been printed, the state court of appeals ruled that the write-in candidate was a valid candidate. The state court of appeals said the state constitution does not permit the state to disallow a write-in candidate on the basis that he or she doesn’t live in the district, because candidates whose names are on the ballot do not need to meet that residency requirement, and there is no basis to discriminate against write-in candidates.
Because the state court of appeals decision came too late, the “wrong type of primary” was held, and now the legislature has determined that the process was therefore flawed and of no effect. In the meantime, the State Supreme Court will be deciding whether the State Court of Appeals was correct.
This all started when it was thought that allowing all voters to vote for multiple candidates of the same party could work well for those times only members of one party run.
It was bad thing because the real and obvious problem is a lack of viable parties. So it has to be understood that the wrong answer will cost, and demonstrate absurdity.
By ignoring the problem of too few parties, the solution fell to who files for office as determinant of who votes. Being blind to real dynamic, the idea that an individual can enter the race and as a consequence change the voting pool seemed benign enough. Soon after, the same blindness gave rise to the idea (judicial ruling) that write-in candidacies are to voters what ballot accessed candidacies are, and that’s where the absurdity came in.
Eventually the legally suspect write-in candidacy had to happen and get baked in the election cake.
More voices, more candidates, more minority representation, better ballot access is the answer in the first place.
Florida ought to vastly reduce the filing fee, which is twice as high as the 2nd highest filing fee state, Georgia. If Florida reduced the filing fee, we wouldn’t have one-party elections, or at least not nearly as many.
Why should the voters have to bear the burden of extra election costs for a special elections? Why not allow the governor of the state to fill the vacancy of any office until the next regularly scheduled election.
Florida – as all states – allows the governor to appoint a vacancy in a U.S. Senate seat and Florida also allows the governor to fill vacancies for county offices. So why not also for congressional seats and legislative seats?
It would save the taxpayers thousands of dollars.
As the late Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen once said, “A billion here and a billion there, next thing you know you’re talking about real money.”
The original decision eliminating the write-in candidate occurred during the summer. The plaintiff voter was the husband of one of the Republican candidates. But there was a failure to open the primary to all voters. In Florida a primary ballot may contain both partisan and non-partisan races. A Republican ballot contains both Republican races and non-partisan races. A Democratic ballot contains both Democratic races and non-partisan races. A non-partisan ballot contains only non-partisan races. In Florida, when a partisan primary is opened to all voters (because there are no candidates not affiliated with that party, it is placed on all ballots so all voters may vote.
In HD-64, this did not happen, and so the primary was voided. The November election was in essence to determine the Republican nominee who would elected because of no opposition.
In Florida, there is no durational district residency qualification. A legislator only needs to be a resident of the district at the time of election, and while he serves. There is a 2-year state durational residency requirement.
The election statutes respect the constitution for on-ballot candidates, but for some reason add a residency requirement for write-in candidates. I suppose an argument could be made that primary voters would be unlikely to nominate a candidate who did not live in the district, or at least intended to establish a residence; and that similarly voters would not sign a petition, for a candidate who could not themselves sign the petition.
The decision to overturn the lower court decision came late, and there was no time to include a write-in space on the ballot (Florida only provides write-in spaces when there are write-in candidates), in part because the appeals court decision was never finalized.
The decisions in this case are on appeal, as they are for another case where a district court ruled the opposite way. Both district courts were in Leon County, which contains Tallahassee, the state capital. Any court action is directed against the SOS who certifies candidates for elections.
Just prior to the November election, one of the Republican candidates sought an injunction from having the votes counted, which would have had the effect of voiding the election and creating a vacancy. As the incumbent, he was no doubt dismayed by having to face a special election, but preferred that certainty to something that might happen by and by.
The organizational meeting of the House was interesting. Governor Scott and his cabinet were present as guests, as was the Chief Justice of the SCOFLA who was administering the oaths of office to the members.
A message from the Secretary of State contained the election results. A motion was made to accept the election results as prima facie evidence of election of the members, with the exception of HD-64 (the leading vote-getter in the non-election election was not present).
After the oaths were administered, a motion to void the election in HD-64 was made. It was pointed out that there was a conflict between the executive and judicial branches. In quoting the Florida Constitution, “Each house shall be the SOLE judge of the qualifications, elections, and returns of its members …”, particular emphasis was made on the word ‘sole’.
The special election will have entirely new filing, and the candidate whose husband’s lawsuit originally knocked the write-in candidate off the ballot, is undecided whether she will run. There may or may not be a primary, depending on who files.
A quirk in the term limits would permit the incumbent whose re-election was voided to serve until 2024. Florida term limits permit a House member to serve 8 consecutive years, but they are worded in terms of who may seek re-election.
They have an exception to prevent a legislator from resigning to create a break in service. But in this case there was no resignation. His previous term has ended and there is now a void. If he is elected in the special election, he will be able to seek re-election in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022, since it will only be at the end of the 2022-2024 term that he will have served 8-consecutive years or more. At the end of the 2020-2022 term, he will have only have served consecutively a few months short of 8 years.
Without the gap in service he would have been term limited in 2018 (he was first elected in 2010).
In the good old days before government-printed ballots, candidates had to persuade voters to write their names in, or they or the parties bore the cost of printing and distributing ballots.
What do you think of the idea of a simple declaration to run for office, and then a printing and distribution fee if the candidate wished their name to be printed on ballots. It is conceivable that this could be administered on a county-by-county or precinct-by-precinct basis.
Voters of course would be permitted to write-in names of candidates.
Where is that Model Election Law — to include such things as write-in candidates and vacancies ???
i.e. 2014-1776 = a mere 238 years for the robot party HACK MORONS in the States to write *complete* election laws.