Florida Restores Early Voting Days, Moves Back Primary.....

MMC said:

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Still smarting from jokes about Florida's inability to run statewide elections, Florida lawmakers approved a package of revisions on Friday to give voters more time and locations to cast their ballots.

The bill, which Republican Governor Rick Scott has said he would sign, allows county elections supervisors to increase the number of early voting days to 14 from eight. To reduce waiting time at courthouses and election offices, they could also use more and larger sites for popular early voting, such as civic centers.

The bill also moves the date of the state's presidential primary to conform with rules set by the national political parties, potentially helping Florida Senator Marco Rubio, considered a possible front-runner for the Republican Party nomination in 2016.

The law clamps a 75-word limit on all ballot summaries for constitutional amendments placed before voters. On November 6, Florida had 11 constitutional amendments, all produced by the Legislature, and some of them had extremely long and intricate summaries that took voters several minutes to read.....snip~

Florida restores early voting days, moves back primary - Reuters News - Breaking News

Again Florida moves it's Primary.....here Obama took the State. Yet the Democrats accused Republicans of trying to suppress votes of blacks and college students last year. Since Scott wouldn't extend the time which they wanted him to do while the election was taking place. Thoughts upon the matter?

Click to expand...

tererun said:

Yeah, they better do something. Their last vote was a disaster. Scott and company screwed it up real good, and he better get back on the ass kissing train and hope that floridians forget about 2012. They will, of course, because most of them are too old to remember what they had for breakfast. All joking aside people pretty much hate Scott. he will have some work to do in the next election, and I don't know of anyone who had a good voting experience in florida last election. I saw the ballot, or book as most would normally call it, and it was crazy. There is doctorate college homework that was less involved than that. Then to spend hours deciding what you were going to vote for and to have to ait hours in line to do it because of a stupid attempt to try and block poor voters to keep obama from winning the state, which he easily did was failure on so many levels.

Nope, Rick and his friends in florida want to keep their jobs and not have to be supported by their wives like Alan West is, so they do a smart thing and forget the crazy attempts to keep poor people from voting. Still, they will have to do a little bit more to get people to forget about last election, and they are going to have to keep their heads down so people are not reminded about what sort of dicks they are.

Click to expand...

Fisher said:

See....republicans are all about allowing people to vote. Glad they finally beat back the democratic disenfranchisement efforts in that state.

Click to expand...

Deuce said:

The reduction in early voting was passed by Republicans over the objections of Democrats. It's really amusing that you jumped to this assumption that Democrats were behind the effort to stop early voting.

Click to expand...

Fisher said:

is is more amusing you think I give a rat's butt about Florida, its voters, or how long they have to stand in line either way.

Click to expand...

MMC said:

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Still smarting from jokes about Florida's inability to run statewide elections, Florida lawmakers approved a package of revisions on Friday to give voters more time and locations to cast their ballots.

The bill, which Republican Governor Rick Scott has said he would sign, allows county elections supervisors to increase the number of early voting days to 14 from eight. To reduce waiting time at courthouses and election offices, they could also use more and larger sites for popular early voting, such as civic centers.

The bill also moves the date of the state's presidential primary to conform with rules set by the national political parties, potentially helping Florida Senator Marco Rubio, considered a possible front-runner for the Republican Party nomination in 2016.

The law clamps a 75-word limit on all ballot summaries for constitutional amendments placed before voters. On November 6, Florida had 11 constitutional amendments, all produced by the Legislature, and some of them had extremely long and intricate summaries that took voters several minutes to read.....snip~

Florida restores early voting days, moves back primary - Reuters News - Breaking News

Again Florida moves it's Primary.....here Obama took the State. Yet the Democrats accused Republicans of trying to suppress votes of blacks and college students last year. Since Scott wouldn't extend the time which they wanted him to do while the election was taking place. Thoughts upon the matter?

Click to expand...

Deuce said:

I'm glad you at least admitted that these attempts were deliberately designed (by Republicans) to disenfranchise people. And it's also telling that this doesn't bother you, suddenly, when discovering it was Republicans doing it.

You just instantly decided disenfranchisement wasn't something to worry about when you discovered it was Republicans doing it. Just ****ing wow, dude. No, seriously, this needs to go in a posting hall of fame, or something.

Click to expand...

danarhea said:

Florida has had a very long history of Jim Crowing the votes of black voters. I'm glad that they just took an important step to reverse that trend. Now if they can only put together a felons list that doesn't have the names of lots people who have never been arrested on it, then we can say that they are on their way to honest elections.

Click to expand...

Fisher said:

My post was a joke to begin with. It is even more funny you have a stick up your butt. And no I "admit" nothing but what I have specifically stated, especially the stick part, though not sure I would term that "suddenly".

Click to expand...

Deuce said:

The reduction in early voting was passed by Republicans over the objections of Democrats. It's really amusing that you jumped to this assumption that Democrats were behind the effort to stop early voting.

The same voting "reform" also included:

-Stopping people from updating personal info on election day, instead requiring them to cast a provisional ballot and return on a later date to complete the vote. Yes, people had to go twice to have their vote counted.
-Further restricted absentee ballots, they could be rejected if the signatures didn't match closely enough. Should question arise, the courts were legally barred from considering other information than the signature. So if you had arthiritis and your signature changed beyond some arbitrary threshold, tough ****.
-Fines voter registration groups that don't turn in registrations within 48 hours. Tough to do for a small organization processing thousands of registrations. This forced that dastardly organization, the League of Women Voters, to suspend its voter registration efforts.

Click to expand...

Perotista said:

I don't think there should be any early voting. That is unless you have a valid reason like being out of the state on election day, then you can vote absentee.

Click to expand...

Deuce said:

Is there any particular problem you have with people voting early?

Click to expand...

Perotista said:

Not really, it just doesn't seem right. It hasn't helped election participation which was the main reason most states allow it. Only three times has voter participation been over 60% of all eligible voters and those 3 time was back in the 60's, 1960, 64 and 68. Since then turnout has been in the low 50's with the exception of 1996 when it dropped below 50% at 49.1%.

I hadn't really paid much attention to early voting until last year and I have been voting since 1964, but the state of Ohio started their early voting prior to the first presidential debate and that struck me as wrong. I probably wouldn't mind if early voting began after the last presidential debate, giving the voters more information because of them I think is a good thing. Once you voted early, there is no changing your vote because of the presidential debates or if an event happened between your early vote and election day.

I am not adamantly against it, I just don't like it on a small scale. Heck WWIII or some candidate could get picked up for raping some gal or bribing his way onto the ballot or something between the time you voted early and election day. But then come to think of it, that probably doesn't matter, as those who vote early are probably die hard partisan Democrats and Republicans and they would vote for their parties candidate anyhow. Just make early voting start the day after the last presidential debate and I am happy with that.

Click to expand...

Deuce said:

I say make the election last the entire month of November. Keep the polls open 24/7. Want to find the money for it? I'm sure the military wont mind giving up all those extra tanks they didn't want in the first place.

I mean seriously, it's elections. The fundamental component of a democracy. We should be trying to make it easier to vote, not harder. Hell, I even sometimes wonder about making voting mandatory. Might get rid of some of the extremists in Congress.

Click to expand...

Perotista said:

I don’t know if you’re funning me or not with your 24/7 all of November voting? There are valid reason I have heard from those who do not vote, here are just a few.
1. Jury duty – here in Georgia jurist are chosen from the voter rolls. Don’t register and you do not have to be on a jury.
2. It doesn’t matter who wins, I get screwed anyway.
3. Both candidates are idiots and don’t know their head from a hole in the ground
4. No matter who wins, they just take care of themselves.
5. I don’t have a million bucks to give them. I don’t count.
6. No matter who wins, nothing never changes.
7. Who’s running?
8. Did you see those political ads? Both candidates are scumbags and don’t deserve my vote.

These are but a few of the reasons I have heard over time. Outside of number one, most of the reasons I have heard are pure dissatisfaction with Washington and with politics in general. Making it mandatory for all people to vote, approximately half would be the ones with the excuses I mentioned above and don’t give a care who wins. They would just punch their ballot and probably not even pay any attention to the names on it.

Then there are voters like my wife, who vote in ever election. Last year she voted for the candidate she thought looked more presidential. She didn’t have a clue which party he belonged to or where they stood on any of the issues.

I suppose my point is to go back to the one single voting day, the first Tuesday in November and let the folks vote who really want to vote. Who are think voting is so important they will go out of their way to vote if necessary. Then we might elect less idiots to congress. As I pointed out in my last post, when voting was conducted only one single day did this nation have over 60% of all eligible voters vote.

Click to expand...

polgara said:

:agree: Back then, when it was voting day, you went to vote...period. I can understand that business travel, vacation plans, surgeries, etc are not made, or changed, because it might interfere with going to vote, and that's probably why absentee voting was permitted in the first place. But now, people in my State can vote weeks ahead of the actual voting day by using the absentee ballot. It's almost as if voting has become something only to be done at one's convenience. And even with that, many people do not even bother to vote. And I have also heard all the excuses why not. Odd...:shock:.

Click to expand...

Perotista said:

I don’t know if you’re funning me or not with your 24/7 all of November voting? There are valid reason I have heard from those who do not vote, here are just a few.
1. Jury duty – here in Georgia jurist are chosen from the voter rolls. Don’t register and you do not have to be on a jury.
2. It doesn’t matter who wins, I get screwed anyway.
3. Both candidates are idiots and don’t know their head from a hole in the ground
4. No matter who wins, they just take care of themselves.
5. I don’t have a million bucks to give them. I don’t count.
6. No matter who wins, nothing never changes.
7. Who’s running?
8. Did you see those political ads? Both candidates are scumbags and don’t deserve my vote.

These are but a few of the reasons I have heard over time. Outside of number one, most of the reasons I have heard are pure dissatisfaction with Washington and with politics in general. Making it mandatory for all people to vote, approximately half would be the ones with the excuses I mentioned above and don’t give a care who wins. They would just punch their ballot and probably not even pay any attention to the names on it.

Then there are voters like my wife, who vote in ever election. Last year she voted for the candidate she thought looked more presidential. She didn’t have a clue which party he belonged to or where they stood on any of the issues.

I suppose my point is to go back to the one single voting day, the first Tuesday in November and let the folks vote who really want to vote. Who are think voting is so important they will go out of their way to vote if necessary. Then we might elect less idiots to congress. As I pointed out in my last post, when voting was conducted only one single day did this nation have over 60% of all eligible voters vote.

Click to expand...

Deuce said:

Yes, those are all valid arguments against mandatory voting. I myself am not convinced it's a great idea, I just ponder it sometimes.

But none of what you've mentioned is an argument for restricting voting to a single day. Those who want to vote should have it made easier, not harder. Greater participation in the democratic process is a good thing.

Click to expand...

Perotista said:

There is no such thing as an honest election. Until gerrymandering is done away with, voter suppression and voter fraud are the least of the worries to an honest election. Gerrymandering is nothing more than jury rigging an election before the first vote is cast.

Click to expand...

Fisher said:

See....republicans are all about allowing people to vote. Glad they finally beat back the democratic disenfranchisement efforts in that state.

Click to expand...