Florida and Michigan: What Should the Democrats Do?
March 14th, 2008 at 06:07am Mark Noonan
They are on and on and back and forth on this - the latest thing being a mail-in primary to re-do the Florida vote (can you say “tailor made for vote fraud and lawsuits”, boys and girls?). Its mid-March, and the Democrats are no closer to a nominee than they were in mid-February and there’s no indicator that even all of April will clarify things.
In such a closely fought national campaign, it seems to me to be unfair to say to Florida and Michigan, “sorry, your leadership broke the rules, so your votes don’t count”. Some way has to be found to have a Florida and Michigan delegation at the convention. I can think of two ways to be fair about it:
1. Have a re-vote. Long and expensive thing to do, but the fairest measure not only in the sense of getting the will of the people, but of having the vote reflect the State of the Democratic party at a given moment.
2. Random selections. A bit tricky given the number of dead and non-existent people registered to vote Democrat, but if you selected 1,000 random Democrats from both States, you could then purge the selected groups of all the dead/mythical voters and then do a random selection of the remainder for the appropriate number of delegates. These would be unpledged delegates, which opens up its own can of worms, but at least the States won’t be disenfranchised for the primary process.
What do you think?
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats
38 Comments
1. JS | March 14th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Both States have already had thier primaries. Its not the States Governments that broke trust with the people, but it was the DNC that disenfranchised the States.
The People have already spoken. The existing votes should count. They were lawfully conducted.
2. hermie | March 14th, 2008 at 7:27 am
The Florida and Michigan voters who voted for the Dem party knew that the DNC was not going to accept the delegates. The state party leaders knew what they were risking when they went ahead and had the primaries anyway.
The state parties messed up, but there are no ‘do-overs’. If you Dems in Michigan and Florida want to get mad at somebody, get mad at your party leaders who broke the rules.
3. JS | March 14th, 2008 at 7:59 am
It doesnt matter if the DNC stated thier intent before the primaries. The DNC has “NO AUTHORITY” over the State. The State gave the opportunity to participate to everyone over 18 years old, irregardless of race, age, or the color of the car that you drive. The process was legal and binding in each state. The DNC needs to accept that fact.
Take note; the DNC is nothing more than a political party, just like the Communist Party USA, the American Nazi Party, The Pot Party, the Democratic Socialists of America party, and dozens of others. They are all equal under eyes the law. If we set our elections by the standards of one party, then we are obligated to set our standards to respect the wishes of the all.
The people have spoken. It doesnt matter of people didnt vote because their political affiliated party did not get “what they want”. Fundamentaly, if the people who are not happy with what the Florida and Michigan Governments did, they should try to elect different officials and change the laws of those 2 states. Note that in order to do that, they need to vote, which, as you so explicity pointed out, they did not do of thier own free will.
4. hermie | March 14th, 2008 at 8:12 am
These were primaries to determine which Democrat was to be chosen for the general election in November. The individual candidates had to be Democrats and had to abide by the rules within the Dem party.
The people who voted knew that the winner would be a member of the party, and thus subject to all rules and conditions of membership…including adhering to the authority which the DNC had over individual state party organizations.
5. Sunny | March 14th, 2008 at 8:22 am
All Democratic candidates agreed to not campaign in those two states and both states Democratic party leaders knew they were violating the rules. They need to live with it. They disenfrachised themselves and need to move on.
6. JS | March 14th, 2008 at 8:27 am
So are you trying to say that because the Satinist party didnt send thier representative, we should also redo elections for them?
Hogwash.
And hermie, the DNC had adequate opportunity, just like every other party, to get thier candidate on the ballot. Hillary was there. It doesnt matter what the DNC wanted, State Laws govern these elections, not political parties.
7. Joe | March 14th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Mark,
Thanks for worrying so much about the Democratic Party.
JS,
Have you at all followed the issue at all? All the Dems agreed not to campaign there. Most of the candidates removed their names from the ballot. That would be foolish to count the results from January since not everyone was even on the ballot.
When you play games or sports (or whatever you do), do you often change the rules in the middle of the game?
The state Dem party screwed up and should have dealt with this before they held their primary. I don’t think a mail-in or an Internet vote would be viable. All they can do it hold another primary. Of course, the problem is who pays for it. That is why the parties involved can not determine what to do next.
In my opinion… they are saying the re-do would cost each state approx $15mil.
The Obama and Clinton campaigns have raised over 100 million. Let them split half the cost. That is about $7.5 mil each. Let the national DNC and the states Dem party split the other 50%. That means the national DNC would pay some $2.5mil. The two states dem parties pay about $2.5mil.
Whatever they do, it needs to be done soon.
8. Joe | March 14th, 2008 at 8:44 am
sorry… I messed up… that would not be $2.5mil for DNC and 2 dem parties.
That would be $5mil.
I need more coffee.
9. Some Assembly Required | March 14th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Hilary was the only Candidate with her name on the Ballet in Michigan.
My two cents, I think they should just divide the delegates equally between the two. I realize this will not affect the stale mate between the two candidates, but it’s a fair way to avoid a ‘do-over’ and eliminates backlash from either side.
10. Nate | March 14th, 2008 at 8:52 am
it’s unlikely that either state would impact the delegates much if there was a revote. they didn’t abide by the rules that were set by the dnc. leave them out.
11. Joe | March 14th, 2008 at 9:12 am
SAR, I agree. If they do hold a do-over, the difference in delegates would be what? 8-10 delegates. Just split them 50-50 and call it a day.
That would be nice, but I’m guessing people in those states want their say with the actual candidates on the ballot.
12. Some Assembly Required | March 14th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Joe,
Exactly, it won’t happen in reality especially in a race where ‘every delegate counts’, but I feel it is really the only solution in which democrats can save face in this debacle.
13. SEW | March 14th, 2008 at 9:18 am
“All Democratic candidates agreed to not campaign in those two states and both states Democratic party leaders knew they were violating the rules. They need to live with it. They disenfrachised themselves and need to move on.”
One would think Sunny would know that “Democratic” “rules” don’t allow them to break federal and state LAWS.
So if the Dem rules allowed them to rob banks, they are correct? On the other hand, progressives think their thoughts are the law.
Voters are entitled to have their vote counted. Democratic rules don’t matter, even if agreed to, they are not legal. Voting is the basis of freedom.
Train wreck, here we come. Democrats disenfranchising Democrats, and breaking the law.
14. Joe | March 14th, 2008 at 9:23 am
SEW, what federal laws were broken? I’m serious, what laws?
15. JS | March 14th, 2008 at 10:45 am
7. Joe
Read what I wrote. You are hacking on irrelevance, no need to reply.
16. JS | March 14th, 2008 at 10:46 am
” the DNC had adequate opportunity, just like every other party, to get thier candidate on the ballot. Hillary was there. It doesnt matter what the DNC wanted, State Laws govern these elections, not political parties.”
17. Sunny | March 14th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Enlighten me SEW, what state and federal laws were broken?
18. Joe | March 14th, 2008 at 11:03 am
SEW, no really… what federal laws were broken?
I did read your reply and (as usual) you make no sense.
But whatever it is, you are comparing it to robbing a bank.
19. Michael | March 14th, 2008 at 11:14 am
The laughable part of this is that both Hillary and Obama are crying about “disenfranchising” the voters when it was their own party which did it. All this hub bub about re-dos, mail-ins, giving voters their voice - its all baloney. This is a fight for delegates, plain and simple. Neither side will agree to any “solution” that in any way benefits the other. This will likely end up in a floor fight in a brokered convention brought on by the DNC in their attempt to punish state partys that didn’t obey them. Should be fun to watch.
20. OhioOrrin | March 14th, 2008 at 11:17 am
wait a sec, mark - if dead politicans can be elected then, seems to me, ur being very hard on dead voters to just summarily purge them from the voting rolls.
so option 3 is - let every vote count!
21. Almiranta | March 14th, 2008 at 11:25 am
There is a reason that the media are not allowed to post the results of the votes of any given state until the polls have closed. It is because of the understanding of human nature which says that voters will be influenced by the trend in the voting.
So Florida and Michigan voted, in the most fair and unbiased way they could. And now they are told that either their votes don’t count or that they need to vote again—but the second vote will, undoubtedly, be influenced by the outcomes of the votes in other states after Florida and Michigan had their primaries. This means that the second vote will be tainted.
If Obama wins, the claim, and rightfully so, will be that he got more votes because the voters already knew he was the presumptive candidate. If Clinton wins, the complaint will be, and rightfully so, that her vote was bolstered by those who suddenly realized that Obama might win the nomination.
The only accurate vote count for either of these states is the original one.
22. Retired Spook | March 14th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Well, the last thing I want to do is suggest to the Dems how to fix this. I subscribe to the age-old notion that when your opponent is engaged in self-immolation, the best strategy is to hide all the fire extinguishers and get out of the way.
23. Some Assembly Required | March 14th, 2008 at 11:57 am
“The only accurate vote count for either of these states is the original one.” ALM
I agree with you here, the only problem being Michigan, where Hilary was the only candidate on the ballot. She won Florida fairly. You cannot count one without the other which is the major problem here. The democrats have gotten themselves into this mess, but then they didn’t see it coming where they assumed Hilary would win super Tuesday outright so penalizing these states would not be a problem.
24. John Ryan | March 14th, 2008 at 11:59 am
seat them 50-50
25. Doug | March 14th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Florida’s first count was fair enough, Michigan’s without the other candidates on the ballot (by their own fault) wasn’t. They shouldn’t redo Florida’s vote but should appeal the seating of those delegates at the convention as they were handed out in Florida’s first vote.
Michigan is another matter. I think the Democrats have seat delegates from both states or it would be a political nightmare, they ought to seat the delegates from Florida and find some other way to punish the state party in some way other than loss of delegates - maybe no DNC money for the state party for two years.
Michigan - they can’t seat the results of the election. They can re-do a primary, or split them some way, but a caucus wouldn’t be fair. Either way, they need to severly punish the state party in that state as well.
26. hermie | March 14th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Obama ‘won’ his first seat not by debating the issues with the dem incumbent, but by finding inelligible signatures on his opponent’s petitions; thus keeping her off the ballot, and he was elected because there was no other competition.
So Obama knows all about how to expoit technicalities, so he could’ve done in Michigan like he did in Florida and got his name on the ballot, but just not campaign there
27. Joe | March 14th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Hey Mark…
What they hell are you talking about here???
2. Random selections. A bit tricky given the number of dead and non-existent people registered to vote Democrat
28. Michael | March 14th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Depends on how you define accurate. No campaigning allowed. No ads. Many candidates remvoed their names from the ballots. No debates. And then vote. The ONLY fair thing to do is to go by the original rules of the DNC and not seat the delegates at the convention. Let the DNC take the blame for their stupid action. Both candidates keep worrying about the “voters” but they only are worried about Democrat voters and the delegates they can get from them. This is just a primary and the DNC CAN set the rules. That’s why they have those silly super delegates and the RNC doesn’t. That is why the donkeys have no winner-take-all states like the elephants do. The DNC made the rules and if they wanted to back down from them the time was BEFORE the votes in Michigan and Florida. It is too late now. Any “fix” they come up with will cause the trainwreck they all fear. Of course I am enjoying all of this. They can’t even manage their own primaries - and they want to run the country?
29. Sunny | March 14th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
What happened to SEW?? Never got an answer to my question.
30. Joe | March 14th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Yep Sunny. Arguing with him is like carrying a dead horse.
31. phnx | March 14th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
The only way to settle this is a floor fight at the Dem convention in Denver.
FIGHT!!!!! FIGHT!!!!! FIGHT!!!!
32. SEW | March 15th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Chief Justice Earl Warren, in Reynolds v. Sims (1964)
To the extent that a citizen’s right to vote is debased, he is that much less a citizen. The weight of a citizen’s vote cannot be made to depend on where he lives. . . . A citizen, a qualified voter, is no more nor no less so because he lives in the city or on the farm. This is the clear and strong command of our Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. . . .
Neither history alone, nor economic or other sorts of group interests, are permissible factors in attempting to justify disparities from population-based representation. . . . Citizens, not history or economic interests, cast votes. People, not land or trees or pastures, vote. As long as ours is a representative form of government, and our legislators are those instruments of government elected directly by and directly representative of the people, the right to elect legislators in a free and unimpaired fashion is a bedrock of our political system.
There it is, the equal protection clause.
33. SEW | March 15th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
The Equal Protection Clause and voting
Although the Supreme Court had ruled in Nixon v. Herndon (1927) that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited denial of the vote based on race, the first modern application of the Equal Protection Clause to voting law came in Baker v. Carr (1962), where the Court ruled that the districts that sent representatives to the Tennessee state legislature were so malapportioned (with some legislators representing ten times the number of residents as others) that they violated the Equal Protection Clause. This ruling was extended two years later in Reynolds v. Sims (1964), in which a “one man, one vote” standard was laid down: in both houses of state legislatures, each resident had to be given equal weight in representation.
It may seem counterintuitive that the equal protection clause should provide for equal voting rights; after all, it would seem to make the Fifteenth Amendment and the Nineteenth Amendment redundant. Indeed, it was on this argument, as well as on the legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment, that Justice John M. Harlan (the grandson of the earlier Justice Harlan) relied in his dissent from Reynolds. Harlan quoted the congressional debates of 1866 to show that the framers did not intend for the Equal Protection Clause to extend to voting rights, and in reference to the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments, he said:
If constitutional amendment was the only means by which all men and, later, women, could be guaranteed the right to vote at all, even for federal officers, how can it be that the far less obvious right to a particular kind of apportionment of state legislatures … can be conferred by judicial construction of the Fourteenth Amendment? [Emphasis in the original.]
However, Reynolds and Baker do not lack a rationale, if seen from another perspective. The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that voting is a “fundamental right” on the same plane as marriage (Loving v. Virginia), privacy (Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)), or interstate travel (Shapiro v. Thompson (1969)). For any abridgment of those rights to be constitutional, the Court has held, the legislation must pass strict scrutiny.[28] Thus, on this account, equal protection jurisprudence may be appropriately applied to voting rights.
A recent use of equal protection doctrine came in Bush v. Gore (2000). At issue was the controversial recount in Florida in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election. There, the Supreme Court decided that the different standards of counting ballots across Florida violated the equal protection clause. It was not this decision that proved especially controversial among commentators, and indeed, the proposition gained seven out of nine votes; Justices Souter and Breyer joined the majority of five—but only, it should be emphasized, for the finding that there was an Equal Protection violation. What was controversial was, first, the remedy upon which the majority agreed—that even though there was an equal protection violation, there was not enough time for a recount—and second, the suggestion that the equal protection violation was true only on the facts of Bush v. Gore; commentators suggested that this meant that the Court did not wish its decision to have any precedential effect, and that this was evidence of its unprincipled decision-making.[29]
34. SEW | March 15th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
In the 2000 election, the Dem leadership only wanted to “count all the votes, the votes in 4 counties. Not the military votes, not overseas votes, not the rest of Florida.
Now the Dem leadership wants to count all the votes, uh, I mean exclusive of Florida and Michigan. Even though their mantra is count every vote.
And like good braindead parrots, Sunny and Joe are right there, count all votes just not Florida and Michigan. And the DNC isn’t even a coequal branch of the government.
Who needs Leno?
35. SEW | March 15th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
So Sunny and Joe, now will you provide your law providing a DNC ‘rule’ to disenfranchise all Democratic voters in Florida and Michigan?
36. phnx | March 15th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
“Hilary was the only Candidate with her name on the Ballet in Michigan.” SAR
Thanks alot SAR, the thought of Hillary in a tutu is really repulsive.
37. Michael | March 15th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
SEW, it is my understanding that primary elections are controlled by the states and the parties. States set dates and establish ballots and places to vote (or caucus), count the results, and announce the winners. Each party sets the rules for their candidates and the rules that must be followed procedurally to conduct a primary or caucus. So the DNC was within their rights to ban the seating of delegates from states that violated their rules (FL and MI). They also set up the idea of super delegates which in this election will make the selection of the nominee something not done by voters at all. All of this is legal. It may anger Democrats and they may complain and demand changes, but it is legal. The reason it is legal is that no one is elected to any public office in these primaries. All they produce are candidates for the general election in November, which IS controlled by the laws you quoted in the Constitution. Big difference there. But I am sure you already knew that.
38. FmrMarine | March 16th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
SEW
“Who needs Leno?”
The rat primary is more like the 2 stooges, keep the chips and beer at hand this is going to get really funny.
Especially since barak hussein obama is a closet racist who has been exposed.