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Daytona Beach
News-Journal
Rewriting Florida election laws and hoping the jokes
stop
By Mark Lane
June 6, 2003
Right now, it looks as though the Legislature will put off
the problem and keep the one-primary system in place for just one
more election. But if we're going to run electoral experiments, why
not really experiment? There's a third way to hold a primary nobody
is talking about. That would be to ask voters to rank candidates in
order of preference and have an instant runoff using voters' second
choices. This is already done in places like Ireland and Australia.
The main objection, other than the novelty of the idea, is that
it's too complicated. Voters won't get it. In other words, this is
still Flori-duh. Our voters just aren't smart enough to do this.
Maybe we've taken all those recount jokes too much to heart. Use
the words "Florida" and "elections" in the same sentence and people
suspect you're looking for cheap laughs. So we shouldn't be too
surprised if there was snickering in the back of the room at news
that Florida election laws will be revised, yet again, in the
upcoming special session. The job can't be put off. The state needs
to put its election law in sync with federal law to qualify for $83
million in federal funds. Given the current budgetary problems, $83
million would be nice to have. One might even be tempted to ask why
the Legislature didn't do this the first time around. The reason is
an impasse over primary elections. Last year's one-primary,
winner-take-all arrangement was an experiment. A one-year-only
thing. The state needs to figure out what to do next year. Before
2002, Florida had two-part primaries. If you had three or more
candidates in one party, a primary election would be held. If nobody
got a majority in the primary, a runoff election would be held to
choose between the top two vote-getters. Example: When Jeb Bush ran
for governor in 1994, he was one of seven candidates in the
Republican primary. He did not get a majority, but came in first
with 46 percent of the vote. He would have faced Jim Smith in a
runoff except Smith, with 18 percent of the vote, didn't wish to be
squashed like a bug and dropped out. Bush's experience with
two-part primaries was that they are wastes of time. Johnnie Byrd,
the speaker the House, had the opposite experience. When he first
ran for the Florida House in 1996, Byrd ran a close second in a
four-way primary. In a winner-take-all primary, he would have taken
nothing. Instead, he won the runoff. Democrats' experiences make
them like two-part primaries, too. The legends of the party --
governors Lawton Chiles, Bob Graham, Reuben Askew and LeRoy Collins
-- all lost crowded primaries early in their careers only to triumph
against better-known, well-funded frontrunners in runoffs. That's
the problem with writing election law: Every legislator is an
expert. Everyone remembers his experiences. Those who like
winner-take-all primaries say runoff elections are too expensive and
inconvenient. Voters don't show up for them. What's more, there's no
time for new computerized voting systems to be set up for them.
This last argument strikes me as odd. Weren't old-fashioned,
clattering pull-the-lever machines routinely set up for runoffs?
Aren't computers supposed to be faster and more flexible? And in a
seven-way primary, like 1998's, there is at least a mathematical
possibility of somebody winning with no more than 13 percent of the
vote. That's one way to settle elections, but it's not democracy.
Right now, it looks as though the Legislature will put off the
problem and keep the one-primary system in place for just one more
election. But if we're going to run electoral experiments, why not
really experiment? There's a third way to hold a primary nobody is
talking about. That would be to ask voters to rank candidates in
order of preference and have an instant runoff using voters' second
choices. This is already done in places like Ireland and Australia.
The main objection, other than the novelty of the idea, is that
it's too complicated. Voters won't get it. In other words, this is
still Flori-duh. Our voters just aren't smart enough to do this.
Maybe we've taken all those recount jokes too much to heart. |
