When revote proposals die, Florida edition
Dante Chinni
Posted: 03.19.2008 / 7:57 AM EDT
The hopes of a revote in Florida seem, at best, to be hanging on by the thinnest of threads. But considering all that analysts have been “certain” of during this presidential campaign cycle – only to find they were wrong later – it’s best to put an asterisk by any political obituary.
Still if a “do-over” election is not completely buried just yet, it’s awfully close, according to Democratic leaders. “We researched every potential alternative process – from caucuses to county conventions to mail-in elections – but no plan could come anywhere close to being viable in Florida,” the state’s Democratic chairwoman Karen Thurman said in an e-mail statement Monday.
What’s been the reaction in Clermont? Democrats are bewildered, while Republicans are smirking.
Many Florida Democrats “do not understand how it happened,” one Patchwork correspondent says. The political machinations behind moving up the state’s primary – a chance to make Florida a bigger player in the Democratic nominating process and get Sunshine State issues on the table – don’t really register. For the crowd that doesn’t tune into C-SPAN, what’s left is the current mess. And some don’t see why the state party would have set a Jan. 29 date without party approval and risk this situation.
For the GOP, which dominates in Clermont, it’s more sideshow spectacle than anything else.
Republicans, who pride themselves on organization, can’t help but chuckle at the state’s Democratic Party, which was not “organized enough to play with the ‘big boys,’ ” says Ray San Fratello, president of the South Lake Chamber of Commerce. While the Florida Democratic Party now wants the national party to fix the situation, one correspondent said, it was the state’s party leaders who took a gamble and lost – ironically losing power in their play for more power.
“The bottom line is that by pushing us into the forefront on the national scene we have come under the scrutiny of the powerful national committees and have lost control of the state process to a certain extent,” he wrote in an e-mail.
A few people noted that by waiting this long the Democrats left themselves in a position where the process was bound to be manipulated by the last two candidates standing.
That’s still a very large possibility, of course. Revote or no revote, the question of whether or how to seat Florida’s 211 delegates at the convention in Denver this summer remains, which means in Clermont more smirks and bewildered looks are likely in the coming weeks.
March 19th, 2008 at 12:19 pm EDT
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March 19th, 2008 at 1:02 pm EDT
Wouldn’t it be better to do a vote online rather than have no representation at all? We can bank online, why not vote?
March 19th, 2008 at 7:22 pm EDT
Banking isn’t the same type of transaction. Banks don’t care who you are, really, only that you’re the same person whose money they’re holding. Thus, they can secure the transaction without needing to care as much about who, exactly, you are.
With voting, anyone can pretend to be anyone. I could, for example, select voters who are registered but statistically unlikely to actually vote, and vote for them. Given the limited money, time and manpower, verifying that the people who voted are who they claim to be is a problem. This goes double on the internet, where it’s quite easy to impersonate others. Yes, there are things you can do, but the process could not be so perfect that it would not be subject to manipulation and accusations thereof.
My best idea as to how to do it would be to do a standard telephone poll, but with a sample size large enough to have small error bars using a list of those registered and eligible to vote and an agreed upon, standardized questionnaire for which all the calls are recorded. Mind you, that might work, but I have no idea if it would be lawful, it would still be expensive, and it still might not be any better. Or they could average out the opinion polls from when the primary should’ve been held. But I doubt anyone would agree to that, because they would be able to calculate whether or not it was in their favor and disagree if it were not.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:24 am EDT
Hope for a re-vote? Is the author nuts? I am a Florida democrat. We have already voted. What political elitists in Washington think is irrelevant. Until the entire country votes on one day on the same slate of candidates,voters are being disinfranchised in every presidential primary. The vote on when to hold Florida’s primary was almost unianimous in both Florida’s house and senate. This was a bipartisan vote and a bipartisan issue. Both political parties are at fault here, certainly NOT the voters.
March 21st, 2008 at 2:54 pm EDT
Thanks alot DNC. By not counting our Florida vote in the primary, you have made it an easy choice for us in the November general election!!!
McCain ‘08 is now the only choice you’ve left for Floridians.