Write-in candidates don't pay fees or collect signatures to qualify, so their names never appear on any ballots. However, their mere presence in races means primaries for those seats are closed.
TCPALM/Treasure Coast Newspapers
Halloween is more than four months away, but the Treasure Coast is plagued by ghosts. Or, more specifically, "ghost candidates," called that because of their tendency to qualify for election ballots, then not be seen or heard from again.
These are candidates who aren't "in it to win it," but have registered as write-ins for other reasons.
But why would anyone fill out paperwork to run for an office without any intention of winning?
Some incumbents might encourage one or more candidates to run against them to dilute the anti-incumbent vote, making it tougher for a single strong challenger to prevail.
In St. Lucie County, former Sheriff Ken Mascara faces possible sanctions from the Florida Commission on Ethics for allegedly recruiting an opponent to run in the 2020 Republican primary against an adversary Mascara, a Democrat, didn't want to face in the general election.
However, across the Treasure Coast, a much more common problem is with write-in candidates "qualifying" to run for certain seats. The result is primaries become closed, disenfranchising, collectively, hundreds of thousands of potential voters. This affects races in all three counties in our region.
A single write-in candidate can change an election
In Indian River County, Deborah Cooney and Keith Ridings are, respectively, write-in candidates for sheriff and the District 5 County Commission seat.
In St. Lucie County, Stephanie Robyn Holden and Mary Jane Keegan are write-ins, respectively, for the District 3 commission and property appraiser slots.
In Martin County, Ken DeAngeles is a write-in for the District 1 commission seat.
Write-in candidates don't pay fees or collect signatures to qualify, so their names never appear on any ballots. However, their mere presence in races means primaries for those seats are closed.
That's not what usually happens in Florida elections. If all candidates are from the same party, state law allows all registered voters, not just those of that party, to participate in elections that determine the winners.
In 1998, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment allowing open primaries under those circumstances. But having at least one write-in candidate creates an exception that has enormous consequences affecting wide swaths of the electorate.
Shocker!Florida's political class preserves bogus write-in candidate loophole
In Indian River County, none of the 58,104 voters who aren't registered as Republicans will be able to select their next sheriff or District 5 commissioner. That means nearly half the county's 117,226 voters won't get a meaningful say in those elections.
In Martin County, 53,194 of 113,089 registered voters are registered as Democrats or have minor or no party affiliation, which represents more than 47% of the electorate.
In St. Lucie County, the numbers of disenfranchised are even more egregious. There are 147,888 people not registered as Republicans out of 233,934 registered voters, representing 63.2% of the electorate.
When mothers recruited to run by sons:Florida's write-in provision worse than you think
The registration numbers from Tuesday, are likely to fluctuate somewhat between now and Election Day. Many of you might even be able to play a role in that (see below).
We could fix this, if the political will is there
Write-in candidates historically have a snowball's chance in Florida of winning, and often do little to no campaigning.
Unfortunately, history has shown we cannot rely on our state legislators to act as Ghostbusters, exorcising these spirits who haunt our electoral process. Republicans and Democrats alike are just fine with ideologically "pure" party primaries.
Still, our electoral system predates political parties. The parties hold taxpayer-funded primaries only because we let them; party lawmakers set the rules.
From 2017:TCPalm delivers readers petitions to Sen. Joe Negron in an effort to get the write-in abuses changed
Even the state's supposedly independent Constitution Revision Commission, which meets every 20 years, failed to meet the people's needs. In 2018, Sherry Plymale, a Palm City resident and member of the commission, was stymied by fellow commissioners in her effort to ask voters to end the much-abused write-in provision.
A year earlier ― after watching write-in abuse after abuse on the Treasure Coast — TCPalm's editorial board had a petition drive in an effort to get lawmakers to end the loophole.
There is a fix to this problem: Treasure Coast voters registered as Democrats, in a minor party or having no party can register to the Republican Party by July 22 and participate in the Aug. 20 Republican primaries. Then they can switch their registrations back. The tradeoff is missing the Democratic primaries on the August ballot, including a U.S. Senate race featuring Palm City resident Stanley Campbell.
The political partisans among us might not like registration switching. Too bad they can't say "boo" about it.
Editorials published by TCPalm/Treasure Coast Newspapers are decided collectively by its editorial board. To respond to this editorial with a letter to the editor, email up to 300 words to TCNLetters@TCPalm.com.
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