Posted by
Rich on Thursday, March 13, 2008 9:17:37 AM
We absolutely loved the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's editorial, "Another election mess".
The
editorial is a great analysis of the train wreck about to happen in the
Democratic Party. We will not go over the gory details of how the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) disenfranchised Florida's and
Michigan's voters by stripping them of their delegates. Reams have been written about that by us and others.
What
is really great to watch is how the Democrats, the party of every
person votes and every vote is counted, is trying to figure out the
right way to allow the Democratic voters in Florida and Michigan to
have a "re-do".
Florida Democratic primary voters already cast
their ballots. As the Herald-Tribune points out, "Seven weeks ago, more
than 57,000 Democrats in Sarasota and Manatee counties voted for
Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Statewide, another 1.4 million
Democrats cast ballots in the presidential preference primary — one of
Florida's highest-ever turnouts."
Note the "one of Florida's highest-ever turnouts". Not according to Al Sharpton. According to the New York Sun, "Laying the groundwork for a court battle that could divide the Democratic Party, the Reverend Al Sharpton is threatening to sue the Democratic National Committee if it counts Florida's primary results in
the official presidential delegates tally." Reverand Sharpton is
concerned that "some" voters did not go to the polls in Florida because
their delegates would not count. Neat argument. We hope the law suit
goes forward.
Sorry Hillary even though you won the Florida
primary by 50% over Barack's 33% you can't count it. Hillary is
disenfranchised along with the 50% of Democratic primary voters in
Florida for the sake of "some" who did not go to the polls.
So now comes the talk of a re-do mail in ballot. Not so fast. Senator
Carl Levin of Michigan told ABC News that there is a "security issue"
with a mail-in ballot. "How do you make sure that hundreds of
thousands, perhaps a million or more ballots can be properly counted
and that duplicate ballots can be avoided?" Mr. Levin has vivid
memories of how absentee ballots have routinely been abused in Detroit
and other cities by unscrupulous candidates.
In
Florida, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Miami has her own issues with
a mail-in ballot. "It's fraught with problems and now is not the time
to be experimenting when we're talking about stakes this high," she
says. "We still have very raw nerves from the 2000 recount."
For
a party that tends to pooh-pooh concerns about voter fraud, it's
refreshing to see a few key Democrats alert to the problems of having
ballots distributed and handled outside the supervision of election
officials.
By the way. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune
tries to pin this mess on the Republican led Florida legislature for
voting to move the primary date up. What they forget to tell you is
that our very own Sarasota Representative Keith Fitzgerald, who is a
Democrat, voted for the legislation. Keith is now going around town
trying to explain his vote, saying part of the bill was the elimination
of touch screen machines in Florida. The legislation would have passed
without Keith's vote.
This is fun to watch. More coming soon.