Politics Blog

This weekend, I wrote “(URGENT) Foley CAN Be Removed From The Ballot” where I cited Florida Statute that could be used by the Florida Republican Party to either succeed in removing the name of the withdrawn nominee or to gain tremendous public awareness of the issue in the event of an unfavorable decision. Ergo, there was little downside.

I would like to carry the argument further as many websites are citing only one statute which states:

If the name of the new nominee is submitted after the certification of results of the preceding primary election, however, the ballots shall not be changed and the former party nominee’s name will appear on the ballot. Any ballots cast for the former party nominee will be counted for the person designated by the political party to replace the former party nominee.

The “importance” of the Statute is when it was written. The Statute makes sense in the paper ballot days when it took time to replace paper ballots. However, in 2006 the majority of ballots cast in Florida’s 16th Congressional District will be on touch screen voting machines.

I would argue that an aggressive attorney could argue that the Statute in question only applies to those areas that have paper ballots and that the Florida Legislature has not rendered an opinion on touch screen voting machines. I would base that argument on part of the opinion from the Florida Supreme Court in “PALM BEACH COUNTY CANVASSING BOARD, Petitioner, vs. KATHERINE HARRIS, etc.,:”

Twenty-five years ago, this Court commented that the will of the people, not a hyper-technical reliance upon statutory provisions, should be our guiding principle in election cases:

[T]he real parties in interest here, not in the legal sense but in realistic terms, are the voters. They are possessed of the ultimate interest and it is they whom we must give primary consideration. The contestants have direct interests certainly, but the office they seek is one of high public service and of upmost importance to the people, thus subordinating their interest to that of the people. Ours is a government of, by and for the people. Our federal and state constitutions guarantee the right of the people to take an active part in the process of that
government, which for most of our citizens means participation via the election process. The right to vote is the right to participate; it is also the right to speak, but more importantly the right to be heard. We must tread carefully on that right or we risk the unnecessary and unjustified muting of the public voice. By refusing to recognize an otherwise valid exercise of the right of a
citizen to vote for the sake of sacred, unyielding adherence to statutory scripture, we would in effect nullify that right.

I would argue that the Statute is moot on “electronic ballots.” There is no harm to the respective Election Supervisors if they change a single line of code to reflect the correct nominee. There is no harm to either political party if the correct nominee is listed. Further, I would argue that it is more likely that the Democrat nominee would be harmed if the “incorrect Republican” is named as people may vote for him that would otherwise not vote for the correct nominee.

The Florida Supreme Court is on record that the interest of the voters takes precedent over the interests of any candidate. Applying a Statute written for “paper ballots” to “electronic voting” is clearly a “hyper-technical reliance upon statutory provisions.”

UPDATE:A comment from one of our readers that is an attorney:

If the “Ballot” for a touch screen machine does not exist until it is programmed, then there is no “ballot” in existence as of this moment, hence there is no “ballot” to “change”.

The argument should be that if events have changed since the certification but prior to the creation of “ballots”, aren’t the voter’s
interests better served by providing accurate information on the ballots
rather than obsolete information

I think this statute can be read as a “fail safe” effort to preserve voter intent if ballot have been printed and distrubuted prior to a candidate change…the old ballots will to abscribed to the party nominees and will not be rendered invalid, and new ballots need not be distributed

Here is the bottomline, the Republican Party needs a replacement now. There is nothing to lose by attempting to get his/her name placed “on the ballot.” If a Court says “no” the rules apply “as-is.” Regardless, a lot of free publicity is generated and the base gets energized. It is very important that the base get energized and a court battle would do it. It would also leave the Democrats having to “splain” why a single line of code should not be updated. Republican lawyers can get witness after witness to testify as to the time it will take (five minutes). This is completely different than the Gore argument over multiple dents on paper. The public will see nothing wrong with changing a line of code and it will embarass the Democrats including Tim Mahoney.

— Oak Leaf

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 1st, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.