Please educate me re: ballots
 

I heard on the news that Congressman Foley cannot have his name taken off of the ballot in his district, and no new name can be added. The same thing happened to Delay here in Texas.

Can someone tell me why there are laws like this? I can't think of a reason you would need to keep people's names on a ballot like this. I guess it might be to prevent a switch-a-roo, but I think I'm missing something pretty obvious. Thanks.

save on ink... states are cheap if they're not erecting statues or football stadiums.

I think it is a rule that is in place so that after the primary, the party bosses can't reject the peoples' choice with some insider instead.

well, in both cases, the candidate resigned and the party bosses appointed some insider to run in their place. :)

The strange thing is, in the Florida race, the votes will still be for Foley; they'll actually be electing another guy but still voting for the sex messenger. It's very odd.

What makes me sick about the whole thing is that he wrote some of the legislation for protection of children against the very crime he committed.

Indeed :D. But I think the fear was changing it while the original person on the ballot still wanted to run :). It does create a dilemma when the original candidate wants out.

Allegedly........a investigation is pending:rolleyes:

they're not sure he really wrote the legislation?

Let's see. Kennedy checks in for pill addiction for an alcoholic problem. Foley checks in for alcoholic addiction for a molestation problem. Don't they have good enough health care to be able to get such things right?

I think there would also have to be a physical deadline for printing, especially for absentee ballots. In the Foley case I would think that the absentees have been printed and likely mailed out. It really would be a problem to have ballots with different candidates and would almost certainly lead to an election being contested.

Now in the Delay case I think Texas has a stupid law. That happened far enough out that there should be a provision to change the name so that people can vote for a candidate they support. Of course Delay in his arrogance caused the problem himself. If he hadn't been insistent on showing he still ruled his district he could have stayed out of the primary.

They are not sure he committed a crime.

I should also add that laws like this are another way to protect incumbents. The last thing a person in power wants is for the opposition to have more time to find a good challenger.

I'm guesss, he was being sarcastic. Just a hunch.

:cool:

On an unrelated note DD, just checked out your blog. While not as funny as some of the stuff you say at OTBL, it's quite good.

I can see that, but I have to wonder if the Florida law is written in the same way as the Texas law, i.e. are you stuck on the ballot if the primary has passed?

As far as protecting the incumbant, that makes perfect sense, except in cases like these, where the incumbant has resigned. It seems like the law would be written to allow the resigned candidate to pull out of the race. That's in the best interest of everyone, isn't it?

Producing a whole new set of ballots is not cheap. Plus you have to reprogram the ballot counting machines to accomodate the change.

In this case, the candidate chose to withdraw. There are typically provisions in case of death, but as was said above, if a candidate can withdraw and his party's leaders pick a replacement, which circumvents the whole primary process that allowed the voters to choose their candidate.

It would in these cases be better for the voters, but the voters aren't writing the laws. The party loyalists who wrote the laws are much more concerned with keeping power in the hands of the incumbants, regardless of party. You can't really pass a law that says the incumbent can be replaced if he turns out to be corrupt or a pervert.

Its always important to remember that almost every election law serves to make challenging thpse in power more difficult.

so you were the one!

thank you very much.