By now, we’re all familiar with how Congressman Foley got into trouble for being a little too intimate with congressional pages, and resigned from office and withdrew from his race for re-election.
In situations like this, Florida law permits a political party to designate an individual to receive the votes for a withdrawn candidate, but the original candidate’s name has to stay on the ballot. It seems silly to me, but understandable given the time involved in jumping through the hoops to prepare and distribute ballots in a way to protect against fraud and inappropriateness.
The silliness deepens, according to this story from the Miami Herald:
A judge has blocked elections officials from posting election-day signs at polling stations that would have informed people that a vote for Republican Mark Foley would be a vote for his replacement, state Rep. Joe Negron.
Leon County Circuit Judge Janet E. Ferris said posting the signs could have led officials down a ‘’slippery slope” that could raise questions about the fairness of posting the notices, which would have benefited Negron. Instead of his name, Foley’s will still appear on the Nov. 7 ballot due to a quirk in Florida-election law.
I have conflicting thoughts about this. On the one hand, I think it’s appropriate to inform voters that a vote for withdrawn Candidate X will really go to Candidate Y, if such a communication can be done in such a way as to not bias voters against other candidates. (In other words, the Foley/Negron’s democratic opponent should have equal billing in such a notice).
On the other hand, I don’t know that such a notice could be done without risking some biasing of the voters.
And over on the third hand I wish I had some times, this seems kind of picky to fuss over when campaign workers could just post notices advising voters of the switcheroo out beyond the campaign-free perimeter around the voting sites. Besides, aren’t voters supposed to have done their homework before coming to the polls on election day?
