Florida is back in a familiar place – the national laughingstock.
This time Florida's votes didn't count. President Obama easily won re-election and was well on the way to brokering deals on the fiscal cliff, the Middle East crisis and perhaps sending a man to Mars as South Florida's local elections supervisors wrapped up their final counts. I don't know about you but I'm getting tired of my friends from Chicago wondering why we can't throw an election properly.
So who's coming to our rescue? The guys who got us into this mess, Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Legislature. Guess they received calls from the Windy City, too, and almost everyplace else that went either blue or red in a timely fashion.
"Look, it was a close race," Gov. Scott said. "We want to make sure every vote gets counted. Every vote's important, so I think the secretary [of state] did the right thing. Here's what people should feel good about: We have a diligent and thorough process, and every vote's getting counted."
Yeah, that went over big. Five days later, the governor's tune changed. "Floridians shouldn't have to wait several days for the results of a major presidential election to be tabulated because of the delays in a few counties when the majority of counties, including major metropolitan areas, have been counted," Gov. Scott said.
Prospective House Speaker Will Weatherford also wants to get to the bottom of the debacle. Not so much with Don Gaetz, the incoming Senate President, who seems open to discussions but not willing to commit to full-fledged reform. "Just because [Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections] Susan Bucher can't count votes, there's no reason why [Okaloosa Supervisor of Elections] Paul Lux needs to be micromanaged," he said.
Still, one wonders how far the Republicans will go in fixing Florida's voting procedures. If they're serious, they can start with dusting off HB 57, SB 828, HB 921, SB 848, HB 1079 and SB 516.
Those are the bills Democrats in the Florida Legislature have been proposing every session since 2010. State Sen. Nan Rich, D-Weston, and state Reps. Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach and Evan Jenne, D-Dania Beach, get kudos for trying.
The bills would have expanded the types of sites that could be used for early voting. City halls, courthouses, places of worship, civic centers, community colleges, even fairgrounds – imagine the possibilities, and the shorter lines, if this legislation had become law.
The bills would have set a formula for the number of sites each county must have, and eliminated the requirement that early voting sites be designated by supervisors of elections at least a year in advance. It's called flexibility, something local elections officials complain there's too little of in running elections. The legislation also would have restored early voting back to 14 days, and ending on the Sunday before the election, a boon to the many "Souls to the Polls" campaigns. Polling places would be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each weekday and for 12 hours in the aggregate on each weekend.
Unfortunately, none of the bills was heard in the Legislature – for three years straight.
Instead, voters got Republican-backed bills that limit early voting sites to public libraries and the supervisors of elections' facilities and a voter fraud reform legislation that didn't address fraud but curtailed early voting and thwarted third-party registration drives. Throw in the 11 lengthy constitutional amendments state lawmakers foisted on Floridians and the electoral embarassment was complete.
So now the state wants to reach out and discuss the particulars with local elections officials, who already feel talked out as many of their points made earlier have simply gone unheeded.
What else do you expect from a group of elected officials whose partisan policy decisions have made Florida the nation's punch line again? In trying to calm down a frustrated electorate, maybe our state leaders will dust off those good ideas and address the state's elections process — seriously.
Douglas C. Lyons can be reached at dlyons@sunsentinel.com, or 954-356-4638. On Twitter@douginflorida
