Scott not taking lead in elections reforms

 TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Rick Scott heralded a meeting Wednesday between his Secretary of State and supervisors of elections as a game changer in getting to the bottom of Florida’s voting problems.

“Florida’s elections supervisors are experts in their fields and many of them demonstrated tremendous expertise in running their elections,” said a news release from his office. “We want to hear their ideas. Sec. (Ken) Detzner will meet today with the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections to get their feedback and insight.”

Scott has much to answer for in the days following Tuesday’s election. His state was last in getting called for Pres. Barack Obama, long lines plagued polling sites in Miami-Dade, Broward, Orange and Lee counties, Palm Beach County was still counting absentees on Saturday, and now St. Lucie County’s elections supervisor has admitted to double counting votes that could muddy the outcome in the U.S. congressional race between Democrat Patrick Murphy and GOP Rep. Allen West.

But aside from finally acknowledging that there were major problems, Scott has offered few solutions or insights, essentially ceding the bully pulpit to potential rivals (hello Charlie Crist, Pam Iorio) and Democratic leaning groups like the AFL-CIO, all of whom are pushing for major reforms.

Wednesday’s meeting between the supervisors and Detzner didn’t clarify what, if any, solutions Scott will provide.

Detzner met for 90 minutes in the law office of Ron Labasky, the lobbyist for the association. Other attendees were the association’s executive board members, who represent Clay, Escambia, Polk, Duval and Martin counties – all of which are rural are suburban counties with Republican majorities that lack the dense urban precincts of counties like Miami-Dade, Broward, Orange, Palm Beach, Hillsborough and Pinellas.

Labasky said the group recommended two fixes: limiting the size of the ballot, so it doesn’t take as long for voters to fill out and consider, and giving supervisors greater flexibility in picking early voting sites. Right now, they are limited to confining early voting to governmental buildings.

The group didn’t recommend expanding the early voting period, Labasky said, which other groups have been pushing.

“We as an association don’t have any consensus on that issue,” Labasky said.

But even the two recommendations that were made Wednesday to Detzner are hardly news. The association has been pushing for greater leeway in choosing early voting sites for years. Many also complained about the length of the ballot. Democrats tried to amend a voting law passed last year by reflecting those concerns, but that was rejected by Republicans.

So what came of the meeting?

“I hope there’s progress in that we’re having this dialogue about early voting sites,” Labasky said. “But (Detzner’s) not indicating that he has his arms around it so that he has any ideas for us or a position that they may follow.”

After the meeting, which was closed to the public, Detzner was even more non-committal.

“It’s a little premature for me to say what we’re going to address,” Detzner said. “It’s important to step back and go into a fact finding mode and make the right kind of recommendations.”

He said he didn’t know when he would make those recommendations, which he added would be vetted by his boss, Scott.

“At the right time, I’ll share it with you and everyone else,” he said. 

Who really won Florida's Cuban vote? Analysts have conflicting results

A claim that nearly half of Cuban-American voters favored President Barack Obama continued under dispute Monday, with one side claiming it had new evidence that it was true and the other insisting it was false.

FIU professors Dario Moreno and Kevin Hill reported Monday their analysis of tallies from selected precincts in Miami-Dade County indicated GOP candidate Mitt Romney won up to 59 percent of the Cuban vote. University of California Riverside Professor Ben Bishin raises a similar argument in a blog post here.

Miami Democratic pollster Bendixen & Amandi International, however, reported Monday its own analysis of the county’s 48 largest Hispanic districts showed Obama won the Cuban vote, 51-49 percent over Romney.

The dispute involves competing visions of whether the Cuban-American vote has moved beyond its half-century-old support for the GOP. But while the two sides disagree on the numbers, it appears clear that Obama received more Cuban votes last week than he did in 2008.

Bendixen sparked the argument Friday when its initial analysis, based on exit polls of 3,800 Florida Hispanic voters and phone calls to 1,000 others who cast absentee ballots, showed Obama with 48 percent of the Cuban vote statewide — a historic high — and Romney at 52. Story by Juan Tamayo here.

 

Below is the Summary Memo of Moreno/Hill findings:

 

Sizing up the pollsters: Who got it right and who didn't in prez race

Nate Silver, the wiz-kid behind the New York Times "Five Thirty Eight" blog, not only precisely called the outcome of the presidential race, he statistically nailed the performance of every state.

He has now analyzed the pollsters with a no-holds-barred accounting of their biases and average errors. For the record, the Herald/Times' pollster, Mason Dixon, didn't fare too well. According to Silver, it had a 5.4 percentage point average error rate in the eight statewide polls it conducted and it favored Republicans by a 2.2 percentage point margin. (We took a look at that here.) 

"Polls by American Research Group and Mason-Dixon also largely missed the mark. Mason-Dixon might be given a pass since it has a decent track record over the longer term, while American Research Group has long been unreliable,'' Silver wrote.

The winner, with the most accuracy measure, was TIPP, a national tracking pollster for Investors’ Business Daily, followed by -- no surprise -- Google Consumer Surveys. Because most polling firms underestimated Mr. Obama’s performance, Silver wrote, polls like TIPP's that had what had seemed to be Democratic-leaning results had the best final outcome.

Election fall-out helped Miami's Jose Oliva secure speakership -- for 2018

Miami Rep. Jose Oliva has secured enough Republican votes in his class to be designated House speaker in 2018-20.

Six years is a long time to wait but, in the just-because world of legislative politics, traditions die hard. So it was no surprise that, despite the election-year upset of incoming House speaker Chris Dorworth, the tradition of collecting pledges for the two-year post continued unabated this week.

By Friday, Rep. Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, had quickly won the pledges to replace Dorworth after Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, dropped out. Rep. Richard Corcoran, R-Trinity, remained the GOP choice for 2016-18.

But the post-election day scramble also allowed Oliva, the CEO of Oliva Cigar Company who has been campaigning for the post since he was elected in a special election in June 2011, to secure enough support from his colleagues to become speaker in 2018-20.

Like Miami's most recent House Speaker Marco Rubio, Oliva is a "red shirt" freshman, having moved into office on a special election. He has a head start on the job but officially becomes part of the class elected in the subsequent election, those elected on Tuesday who are term-limited out of office in 2020.

Oliva had faced the prospect of being challenged for the speakership by two former legislators, Frank Farkas of St. Petersburg and Alex Diaz de la Portilla of Miami. Both lost on Tuesday as the wave of Obama supporters crushed Republicans in a handful of newly-drawn House districts.

Now, Oliva's supporters tell us, he has secured the pledges free and clear. Dorworth even acknowledged it in his fairwell note to colleagues on Friday.

The line-up of Republican speakers for the Florida House looks this way: Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, 2012-14; Crisafulli, 2014-16; Corcoran, 2016-18; Oliva, 2018-20. That is, of course, another election day doesn't get in the way.

Dorworth falls further behind Clelland, now 123 votes short, recount set for Sunday

Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Mike Ertel released the following late Thursday night. After a review of provisional ballots Rep. Chris Dorworth has lost even more of his narrow margin against Democratic challenger Mike Clelland, who now has a net 123 vote lead.

From Ertel:

The canvassing board has just completed canvassing of all of Seminole County’s provisional ballots.  The updated numbers are here: http://www.voteseminole.org/links/ESR_2.pdf

In short, of the provisional ballots which were deemed eligible, Clelland received an additional 228 votes and Dorworth received an additional 142 votes.  The previous lead of 37 was increased to 123.  It is now Clelland-36,977, Dorworth-36,854.

Next step: we have submitted the results to the Florida Department of State.  In accordance with the parameters set by Florida law, I assume the Secretary of State will order a recount of this race.  We have already scheduled a canvassing board meeting for Sunday at 1 p.m. for the conduct of the recount.

 

Democrats reflect on Florida successes: seeds of rebuilding effort

Scott Randolph, a former state representative and Orange County Democratic chairman, stood before a crowd of 200 supporters Tuesday night and declared they had changed the swing in the crucial swing state county.

The central Florida county is the buckle in the I-4 corridor’s belt and had been a long-time Republican stronghold, but on Tuesday it was clear that tradition had ended. “We are the face of the I-4 corridor and we have won,’’ Randolph said, noting that Democrats not only won their state legislative seats but all important countywide seats.

Randolph, a former legislator who retired because of term limits, was elected Orange County tax collector on Tuesday night when he became a last-minute replacement candidate for the incumbent who died, Earl K. Wood. He remains a candidate for state Democratic Party chairman.

"This election is a referendum on a state legislature that is far out of step with the public,'' Randolph said. He blames "gerrymandered districts" and a Republican majority that "puts ideology before policy."

Newbie Jose Javier Rodriguez poised to defeat Alex Diaz de la Portilla

Political newcomer Jose Javier Rodriguez made a strong showing Tuesday against one of Miami-Dade’s most well-known political figures for a seat in the Florida Legislature.

With some polls open late into the night, Rodriguez had a comfortable lead over veteran Republican lawmaker Alex Diaz de la Portilla in the hard-fought battle for state House District 112.

“We were talking to voters everyday,” Rodriguez said. “We really ran a really grassroots campaign. It was never about my opponent. It was never about the partisan battle lines in Tallahassee either.”

In other races, South Floridians opted to send familiar faces back to Tallahassee.

Voters favored incumbent Gwen Margolis over newcomer John Couriel in the closely watched race for Senate District 35.

More on South Florida's other state House and Senate races here.

In battleground Osceola, voters arrive in a steady stream

Edison Rosendo arrived at the Kissimmee polling place across the street from his apartment complex with a thick book in hand, ready for the long wait.

Instead, the Barry University law school graduate was in and out of the Robert Guevara Community Center in 15 minutes as a steady stream of voters cast their ballots with barely a wait. 

"I voted for Barack Obama, even though I'm unemployed,'' said Rosendo, 27, who is registered with no party affiliation. He has been looking for work since he passed the bar in June, he said, but he voted for Obama because, after researching Romney's agenda, he concluded "he wants to block everything Obama has done and I feel that is not a good way to govern."

Osceola County is the heart of the state's swing region, where the burgeoning Puerto Rican population has converted cow pastures into subdivisions and a one-time stronghold for conservative Republicans into new terrain for conservative Democrats.

Romney, however, has been competitive here as the region's struggles like the rest of the state with stifled employment, even in the backyard of Disney.

"I voted for Romney because Obama has his chance,'' said Denise Calero, 44, an unemployed single mom who was laid off as an inspector at the nearby Lockheed Martin plant a year and a half ago. She and her extended family, all from Puerto Rico, feel the same she said. "The same chance Obama had, Romney should have."

Vilma Figueroa, 54, was voting for the first time in Florida since she moved to Kissimmee a year ago. She arrived at the polls with her father, Conception Figueroa, 81, who has been voting in this country since he moved to New York in 1952. 

"For me, Obama looks more human,'' Figueroa said. "I like him better."

 

Conservative group files last ditch lawsuit to oust justices from the ballot

The conservative Southeastern Legal Foundation has filed a last minute lawsuit on behalf of a Destin man that seeks to remove from Tuesday’s ballot the three justices seeking retention to the Supreme Court.

The claims are similar to one offered up earlier this summer when the same group asked a state court to remove the justices from the ballot, arguing that Justices R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince failed to properly file their qualification papers. The justices are on the ballot as part of the requirement that they come before voters every six years on a retention vote.

Judge Terry Lewis dimissed the case in August, but now the group is back, this time bringing a petition for a writ of quo warranto -- demanding that Secretary of State Ken Detzner remove them from the ballot and accusing him of failing in his duties. They filed the petition with the state Supreme Court, the same on court which the three justices sit.

“The Secretary of State has violated his duty to uphold the Florida Constitution and enforce Florida Law, specifically the Florida Election Code, with regard to whether Justices’ Lewis, Pariente, and Quince qualified for the 2012 general election ballot for merit retention,’’ the 48-page brief filed late Monday says. “Under the Florida Election Code, it was the duty of the Secretary to determine that each of the three Justices had failed to meet the mandatory constitutional and statutory qualification requirements...”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Denny Jones of Destin. Download Filed_11-05-2012_Petition

Q and A with Florida's justices up for retention

Three of Florida’s seven supreme court justices are up for a retention vote in what has become the highest spending judicial election in state history.

The justices, Justices R. Fred Lewis, Barabara Pariente and Peggy Quince,  collectively raised $1.5 million for their campaigns, a decision, they said, was provoked when the conservative Americans For Prosperity announced they will oppose their retention.

When the Republican Party of Florida announced it was also opposed to retaining the justices in September, an electioneering and communications organization formed on the justices’ behalf -- named Defend Justice from Politics -- raised another $4 million.

The Herald/Times sat down with the three justices in early October to discuss the effects of the unprecedented political push on their race. Here’s the transcript of our conversation:

Q: Until this year, a retention race in Florida never cost more than $300,000. Why has your race become so expensive?

Lewis: Because a there is an attempt to push it into a partisan political battle.

Quince: And it’s never been that way before. We have always had non-partisan elections here and merit retention has always been non-partisan. This would take us back to what we had 40 years ago when we had the scandals on the Supreme Court.

Pariente: This is unprecedented. It is a complete attack on the system of merit selection and retention in the state and, whether it was the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, it would be equally destructive.