From Howard Troxler at the St Pete Times.
This bill does a lot more than advertisedThe big elections law just passed by our Legislature, known as House Bill 537, is supposed to return Florida to a "paper trail" for elections. No more touch screen machines, just like Gov. Charlie Crist wanted. But I gotta tell you, the Legislature tacked so much extra junk onto this sucker that it looks like a frat-house refrigerator door - and the contents are just about as unknown and dangerous
Besides getting rid of touch-screen machines, the bill:
- Moves Florida's presidential primary from March to the end of January.
- Changes the "resign to run" law, so that Florida politicians can keep their state jobs and run for federal office at the same time.
- Cracks down further on citizen petitions, and creates a mischievous counterprocess in which opponents can get petition signatures revoked.
- Restricts complaints to the already-puny Florida Elections Commission to the point that rule breakers just about have to turn themselves in.
- Stacks the executive committees of political parties, and gives the state party bosses absolute power to remove local party officers.
- Deals with the ability of political committees to raise money under various names, and to conduct polling.
And that's only part Troxler lists.
We had been fighting them on cracking down petitions, and the part about the restricting complaints to the Florida Elections Commission worries me a lot.