Small Town Politics

Politics in a small town is no small matter. And in my small town, it's as serious as big bass in a deep hole.

In my state, unless the county is chartered, the primary elections for state and county office are closed. You can only vote during your party's primary. Fine, so long as each party has a primary election. But when it's a single-party ticket, the one primary becomes universal - meaning that anyone can vote. This was a Constitutional amendment that the people of Florida voted into place back in 1998. However, the lawmakers that drafted the amendment seem to have overlooked something (No! Say it isn't so...)

When there is a write-in candidate, the primary closes and, again, unaffiliated voters are disenfranchised. Loophole or honest oversight - you tell me.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Small Town had a single-party ticket with two evenly matched candidates. Because of state law, the primary became universal and all were set to vote. Then, not one but two write-in candidates threw their hats into the ring. And they are running for House Representative to boot. Not some city council seat or even county commissioners office. Noooooo! These two average Joe's have aspirations for Tallahassee. One couldn't decide if he wanted to run for the county commission seat or the House seat and had to ask one of the key members of the Republican party to download and complete the forms for him. Can you say M-A-N-I-P-U-L-A-T-I-O-N? I knew you could. It seems this was all discussed over the counter of the local gun & pawn shop. (OMG)

Here's the kicker. Because of the closed primary, 67 percent (more than 9,000 registered Democrat, Independent and NAP voters in my county alone) are locked out of the primary. Now I realize that this is only the primary - the general election is still open to all voters. But as I said, in Small Town, politics is taken very seriously. And there are quite a few people up in arms about this. But wait, there is a solution. And we like solutions. It stuffs the whiners nicely.

By changing parties, voters can cast their balloots in the closed primary (for whichever local candidate they chose) and then vote along their own party lines in the general election in November. I don't necessarily advocate changing parties, but sometimes you've got to work the system until the system is working. I am sure our astute lawmakers were thinking along these same lines back in '98 when they tried to fix (??) the system. More importantly, Florida voters need to push the new bunch in Tallahassee to correct this problem. The write-in loophole has to be closed - permanently.

OK, I had to get that out of my system. I'm writing a story that explains, in understandable terms, why such a large number of people can't vote in Small Town this August. I mean, the logic is there only to a certain point, then just kind of drops off. And I like the idea of presenting the solution to the problem. Not an original idea - just passing on the information. That's my job.

But all is well, and I am fortunate to be living in a place where people are so concerned. Voter turnout in my area is something like 89 percent. That's incredible, considering that areas I've lived in with millions of people only had something like 45 percent of voters going to the polls.

So I'll sleep safe tonight, knowing the Small Town folk are going to get a leg up on those who would skew the election. Damn those political hacks. They say change starts with one person. Who will it be? In the words of Edward R. Murrow, "Good night and good luck to you all."