"...For the millionth time, Florida Democrats had no power to block the moving of Florida’s primary election. Thus, the DNC should not have “punished” Florida Democrats.
Our state legislature moved the primary dates, an entity on which the DNC’s rules are not legally binding. Our State House has about 77 Republicans to 43 Democrats. Republicans constitute about 60% of our State Senate.
In short, Florida Republicans can unilaterally pass or block any legislation they want. They could have moved the primary date without a single Dem vote.
Instead, they wanted Dems to go on record voting for it, so they tied the primary-date provision to a provision requiring paper trails for those touchscreen voting machines that ex-Sec. of State Katherine Harris had persuaded our big counties to buy.
For an idea of how well paperless voting has worked in Florida, see this article about paperless voting machines that reversed the results of a Medley, Florida, election in 2002 (scary stuff). Even better, the Equal Justice Foundation has a list of documented paperless voting-machine problems throughout the U.S.
The upshot: it is for very good reasons that Florida Dems wanted a paper trail, but state Republicans effortlessly blocked Dems’ efforts for years..."
2 comments:
Bob, may we reprint at No Quarter?
Susanunpc at gmail dot com
Sure, but the link is from No Quarter, and that's not much of a statement from me. But I'd be honored.
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