|
Thursday, July 22, 2004 |
| Vote Smart Florida , a group formed by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, has put out news of the dark side process of collecting signatures to put proposed Constitutional amendments on the ballot. With a combination of hidden cameras, interviewing petition collectors and signers, they have uncovered practices such as collectors encouraging voters to sign a petition multiple times and giving out incorrect information about the proposed amendments. Group cites deceptive petition procedures (Tallahassee Democrat)
The Pensacola News Journal article reports that over 1300 forged signatures were found in the Panhandle region. Panhandle peition signatures suspicious (Pensacola News Journal) I've witnessed the process at work. There were ads all over campus here at Florida State that encouraged people to make money by collecting signatures. For most of the spring it was impossible to walk around campus without running into at least one person collecting signatures. I tried to avoid the collectors as much as possible. Of the ones that I didn't manage to avoid, I was roundly unimpressed with their knowledge of the issue they were collecting signatures for. For instance, a person collecting signatures for the minimum wage petition claimed that Florida has the lowest minimum wage in the country (actually, we are one of eight states that does not have a state law on the matter, and the majority of the remaining states opt to mirror the federal minimum wage). When I challenged her on that statement, she insisted it was true. After arguing with her a little bit, I asked her where she was getting her information from. She said it was from the people paying her. (She was getting paid 50 cents per signature. I don't know for sure who was paying here, but I believe it was a company specializing in signature collection). I did not witness attempts to get people to sign a petition multiple times, but as I've said, I wanted nothing to do with those collecting signatures, so it could have been going on here. The free market side of me does not like the idea of banning they paying of people to collect signatures. However, the pragmatic side of me does not oppose the idea. As a whole, I am not a fan of the initiative process. The default for a referendum that makes the ballot is for it to get passed. Only if groups make very active (and often costly) efforts to defeat it will an amendment fail. Our state constitution has items in it that are not fitting for a constitution because of this. Disclosure: I did sign petitions for the bullet train amendment and the medical liability amendment. In both instances the collectors were members of the groups sponsoring the amendment, not employees of a petition signature collection company. Note that the bullet train amendment repeals a previously passed amendment. Florida Referendums 2004, Politics comment []11:15:16 AM  trackback []
|
| With 41 days until the primary, 44% of Florida Republicans are undecided according to Insider's Adavntage poll of 300 likely voters statewide. Bill McCollum leads with 19%, followed by Mel Martinez at 14%, Doug Gallagher at 11%, and Johnnie Byrd at 4%. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 6%. If you take the poll released by the Gallagher campaign, and subtract four percent from each of these candidates and then add it to the undecided, you get this poll. This may show that this poll was either less aggressive in getting people to select a candidate, or that the other poll asked the question in a less concrete manner. One odd thing in this poll is the 5% who say that they are voting for "someone else". --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida Medical Association endorsed Bill McCollum, who supports a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases and the ballot initiative to cap attorney's fees' in medical malpractice cases. Doctors group endorses McCollum for Senate (St Petersburg Times) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Florida Medical Association backs McCollum (campaign press release)
Richard Pinsky, political consultant for the Gallagher campaign, says
that today will be the day Florida politicians remember as the start of
Gallagher's rise from political obscurity to victory. That's
because today a fifteen minute movie about the candidiate premeires in
Miami's Little Havana Tower Theater. It will then be shown in
independent movie theaters throughout the state. Senate candidate's film premieres tonight (Palm Beach Post)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Gallagher makes political history tonight (campaign press release) Tying up a loose end from yesterday, the Coalition for a Fair Judicary relased its announcment of Johnnie Byrd signing the Fair Judiciary Oath. Martinez apparently signed it at a press conference with the organization, which is why they announced his signing first. (Martinez press release: Note that it incorrectly states that he is the only candidate to sign the oath. I asked the Byrd campaign about this and they believe it to be an honest mistake.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I didn't come across any news from any of the Democrats campaigns. Maybe I need to send out a press release outlining the evils of Flash!!! Florida Senate Campaign, Politics comment []8:34:14 AM trackback []
|
| Everything that I said in my note to the Deutsch campaign applies to you guys as well. To repeat: Not everyone has flash installed on their browsers. People browsing from public computers usually cannot opt to install Flash. Because of this, people looking at your website from the computers in the libraries here at Florida State see a bunch of brokeness and almost none of the site's content. Also, search engines cannot see the Flash links, therefore they miss most of your content as well. To demonstrate: Search Google for "Castor First Tv Ad". The third result found is to the Betty Castor website. Now do a search on "Penelas First Tv Ad". The first page of hits is all newspaper articles. On the second page, there are more newspaper articles, as well as a link to Betty Castor's website! The third page is more media articles, and on the fourth, yet more media stuff, plus a link to Doug Gallagher's website! NOT GOOD! If you search "penelas campaign broadcasts first tv ad" ,(which is the title of the press release on your website), you get eight hits, none of them to your website! Most of what Flash is being used for on your website could be done in HTML with minimal losses in quality of appearance. In return, you get a several-fold increase in usability and value. It's not too late to fix it. Florida Senate Campaign, Politics comment []12:02:08 AM trackback []
|
© Copyright
2004
Charles Fenwick
.
Last update: 8/2/2004; 8:03:07 AM .
Last update: 8/2/2004; 8:03:07 AM .
