Editorial: Late write-in candidates muzzle the voice of 103,510 St. Johns County voters

Editor's note: This editorial was adapted from an editorial first published July 3, 2016, as it's still as relevant as it was then.

If there were ever a time when we needed free-thinking moderates in politics, it is now.

Forget, for the moment (if you dare), congressional and presidential politics. Our state legislature is a partisan bad dream, in which gridlock is de rigueur and party hacks in leadership positions — perhaps a dozen members in all — pull the strings and own the votes of our 160 elected representatives and senators.

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Even the best-intentioned new lawmakers going in, learn that it's my-way-or-the-highway if they stray from the lockstep of party mantra. The vast majority doesn't care because, more and more, that's how they get there in the first place — hand-picked parrots of party gospel.

The parties are focusing their attention more frequently on local political offices. Cookie-cutter candidates are "highly incentivized" by the parties to run (in our case Republicans, though Democrats work the system when and where they can), or hand-picked by the governor's appointments.

Florida's closed primaries are among the bag of tricks employed to ensure independent thought is absent from the ballot. In open primaries if, after qualifying closes, only candidates of one party are on the ballot, all voters registered — no matter the party affiliation — can vote in the primaries.

Enter write-in candidates to close that door.

St. Johns County had late entries close two county races locally last week by registering in an opposing party — two county commission races. So the primary closes. Only Republicans vote for Republicans in those races. Independents and Democrats vote for no one. That's increasingly a big deal because more than 27% of all voters in Florida will be independents by this election cycle. In our county, 53,106 non-partisan voters are registered. They're a major party in and of themselves, they just don't realize it. Nor do they have an organized way to demonstrate it at the polls. Their numbers in our county are 24.3% of registered voters, even more than Democrats at 23.1%.

That's a major, and a generally young, moderate force, effectively muzzled by law. Talk about taxation without representation.

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled the system legal, without weighing in on whether or not it's gamed. Having the money to meet election qualification thresholds does hinder the little guy from the election equation to some extent, though candidates can — and do — qualify by expending shoe leather rather than cash in a petition campaign.

So what's the answer? The simple answer is for our legislators to fix the system they rigged — but back to the real world. There is a group now seeking to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to open primary balloting. It will take time.

What makes, perhaps, the most sense, is to implement what's known as a semi-closed primary process. Republicans still vote for Republicans and Democrats still vote for Democrats (eliminating the threat of cross-over voting, but that's another story).

Those registered as independents are allowed to vote either Democrat, Republican or for non-affiliated candidates whether they qualify or write themselves in.

It is both more fair, and very likely the only method available for weakening the chokehold big money and deep-pocketed political party machines have on state and local politics.

The frightening truth is we can no longer "throw the bums out" at the polls. The power brokers have a stable of "new bums" already groomed, saddled and ready to run in races where the outcomes, for the most part, will already be decided.

This article originally appeared on St. Augustine Record: EDITORIAL | Late write-in candidates shut out 47.4% of county voters