Salon: Another Election Fiasco In Florida? (Dem Party At Battle With Itself)

[Hissyspit]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/30/florida

Another election fiasco in Florida?
The Democratic Party is doing battle -- with itself -- over the state's role in the primaries. Some members say it could cost the party in November 2008.

By Michael Scherer

Oct. 30, 2007 | PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. -- Amid the swimming pools and shuffleboards, a new sense of outrage is buzzing through condo land. Democratic activist Adele Berger began to hear about it at her regular, eight-deck rummy game in Century Village, an expansive, historically Jewish community of New York retirees. "People have been coming over and asking me, 'What's going on, Adele? What's the purpose of voting if it won't be counted?' And that's sad, that's sad."

The head of the community's Democratic club, Sophie Bock, is hearing the same thing, forcing her to reassure residents in the monthly newsletter that their presidential primary vote will count -- at least symbolically. "I am trying to make nicey-nicey, because I can't stand it when the people say, 'I don't want to vote. My vote won't be counted.'" Privately, however, she is as angry as her club members, so angry that she has even begun deleting fundraising e-mails from Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee before reading them.

"We have been screwed so many times," says Berger, sitting at her kitchen table late last week, before a spread of moist marble cake and sugar cookies.

"Oh yes, they are screwing us again," says Bock, who wears a purple beret decorated with fabric flowers.

"That's what I just said -- right," Berger says.

Such is the mood these days in Florida, where the specter of election meddling is again rearing its head. National Democrats plan to deny the state's 4.25 million registered Democrats any delegates to the 2008 National Convention as punishment for the state Legislature's decision to move the primary date to Jan. 29, one week earlier than the party rules allow, in an effort to make the Florida vote more influential. At the same time, the political leaders in four early primary states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- have bullied the major Democratic candidates to forgo campaigning in Florida until February, effectively prohibiting voters like Bock and Berger from meeting their candidates, receiving campaign mail or even seeing a candidate advertisement on TV. "We can listen to their debates," says Bock. "But, you know, sometimes if it interferes with a card came, someone is going to play cards."

In any other state, this sort of intra-party fight might seem like little more than an inconvenience. But messing with the vote in southeast Florida is a bit like lighting a fire under a burn victim's home. The retirement communities of Broward County form the core of the state party's strength, with some of the highest Democratic margins in the nation. There are nearly 460,000 Democratic voters in the county, or about three-quarters of the total number in the entire state of Iowa. Broward County was ground zero for the Bush v. Gore presidential recount, the sight of courtroom shout-fests, dimpled chads and, finally, anguished disillusionment. In 2006, electronic voting machines in a Florida district across state failed to record a vote for Congress from 18,000 voters, a glitch that may have been due to voting machine malfunction or poor ballot design. But there was no way to investigate since the machines left no paper trail. "We're always so troubled," says Berger.

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1. Florida? Let's plan on winning without the state that's so bad with numbers.