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FLORIDA POLITICS
Since 2002, daily Florida political news and commentary

 

UPDATE: Every morning we review and individually digest Florida political news articles, editorials and punditry. Our sister site, FLA Politics was selected by Campaigns & Elections as one of only ten state blogs in the nation
"every political insider should be reading right now."

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Welcome To Florida Politics

Thanks for visiting. On a semi-daily basis we scan Florida's major daily newspapers for significant Florida political news and punditry. We also review the editorial pages and political columnists/pundits for Florida political commentary. The papers we review include: the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Naples News, Sarasota Herald Tribune, St Pete Times, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, and, occasionally, the Florida Times Union; we also review the political news blogs associated with these newspapers.

For each story, column, article or editorial we deem significant, we post at least the headline and link to the piece; the linked headline always appears in quotes. We quote the headline for two reasons: first, to allow researchers looking for the cited piece to find it (if the link has expired) by searching for the original title/headline via a commercial research service. Second, quotation of the original headline permits readers to appreciate the spin from the original piece, as opposed to our spin.

Not that we don't provide spin; we do, and plenty of it. Our perspective appears in post headlines, the subtitles within the post (in bold), and the excerpts from the linked stories we select to quote; we also occasionally provide other links and commentary about certain stories. While our bias should be immediately apparent to any reader, we nevertheless attempt to link to every article, column or editorial about Florida politics in every major online Florida newspaper.

 

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The Blog for Monday, December 06, 2004

Super Voting

    Rather than have just 12 hours to vote on a single workday, Floridians would be able to cast ballots over 11 days. Polls thus would be open over two weekends.

    To accomplish this, the number of polling places would drop dramatically. Supervisors would concentrate them into larger "voting centers." Such a change could mean that counties would need fewer machines. More important, it almost certainly would mean fewer poll workers, volunteers who are well-intentioned but can make mistakes and are not always comfortable with increasingly high-tech systems.

    Supervisors suggested the change after noting the popularity of early voting in this year's general election. In fact, the popularity was the problem. Even in large counties that opened more early-voting locations than Palm Beach County did, people waited between two and three hours. Both major parties pushed early voting, and the system didn't anticipate the demand.

    Some counties had experimented with early voting, but it became clear this year in Florida and elsewhere that it is no longer possible to concentrate elections on one day during the week. At one Palm Beach County precinct, voters waited two hours past the 7 p.m. closing time. Some small-business owners can't take time off to wait for 90 minutes, as was routine on Nov. 2.

    The Legislature would have to approve any universal change, and some questions come up immediately. Even if counties need fewer polling places, could they find enough to handle voting over 11 days? If churches or synagogues serve as voting centers, what happens on Saturdays and Sundays? Would people be less likely to vote if they had to travel farther? What if many voters wait and overwhelm the larger but fewer precincts?     "Harness the popularity of state's early voting".

7:44 AM

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