Editor’s note: This post is part of a partnership between News4JAX and Jacksonville Today. Never miss a reply. Sign up for the free Jacksonville Today newsletter.
Q Ballots for this month’s primary are already arriving at election officials’ offices. And in Florida, a state with closed primaries, several of our races are closed to voters of a single political party because the winner must face a qualified candidate in the general election. (Elections remain open to all if all candidates are from the same party.)
This has
“I always thought that a write-in candidate was just that: There’s a blank line on the ballot and you write your name in.”
A. When you cast your vote in the November general election, you will find a series of blank spaces where you can write in your preferred candidate. Many voters who use this option do so in protest, such as “Everyone Else,” “Mickey Mouse,” or “Tim Tebow.”
However, Florida election law also allows candidates to officially run as hand-in candidates without having to qualify for inclusion on the ballot.
As Chris Chambless, director of the Clay County Board of Elections, explains, this ensures that only qualified candidates can win (“qualified” means they’ve filed the right paperwork; their suitability for office is a whole other question). So if Tim Tebow somehow got enough votes to sit on the Clay County Commission, he wouldn’t be elected unless he registered as a candidate with Chambless’s office.
While there are “still requirements,” he says, candidates who are not on the ballot do not face the same qualification hurdles as other candidates.
To appear on the ballot, a candidate must submit a petition with a number of signatures equal to at least 1% of the population of the district for which he or she is running or pay a registration fee of 3% of the official salary and other fees.
Written nominations skip these steps, but the candidate must still meet the minimum requirements for the office (if any), such as residency or age.
The idea behind the write-in option is that anyone has the opportunity to run for office, Chambless says, regardless of whether they have enough money.
But according to government watchdogs, it’s common for people to run as unregistered candidates to get out of the primaries and give certain other candidates an advantage, not because they want to win.
This has been happening since the late 1990s, says Ben Wilcox, director of Florida Integrity Research Jacksonville todaysince the state has determined that candidates who do not appear on the ballot still represent another option for voters.
Wilcox says, “This could easily be fixed by the legislature, but it won’t happen because both parties like the loophole in the at-large candidate system,” he says. “They like closed primaries.”
Duval and Clay counties do not have any municipal elections decided by at-large candidates, but St. Johns County has several elections — such as the election for sheriff — where all candidates are from one party and there is only one opportunity to be at-large. This means that the 122,606 registered Republicans have the opportunity to decide these elections, but more than 100,053 other voters are left out.
Candidates not on the ballot have filed to run in elections across the state, including for the state’s legislative seat.
“I hear from voters who are really frustrated because they are being shut out of the primary because they are a member of the other party or because they are unaffiliated voters and are being disenfranchised,” he says. “This is happening all over Florida.”
Curious about something in Jax? Email your question to [email protected]and a reporter from Jacksonville Today might answer it in a future article. Just put #ASKJAXTDY in the subject line. This post appears as part of a partnership with Jacksonville Today. Never miss a reply again. Sign up for the free Jacksonville Today newsletter.
Copyright 2024 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.
