Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Independent Voters left out of voting in the Primary
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Old 03-15-2016, 03:01 PM
joldnol joldnol is offline
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In Florida, if a seat has no opposition outside of the party, then the primary is an open primary since it decides who the representative will be. I registered as a Republican in Jacksonville when I couldn't vote for the state senate seated vacated by Jim Kings death (the last true great republican in Florida politics). The Republican field had three candidates in the primary and to keep any Democrats or Independents from voting in the primary, the GOP ran two write in candidates for the general election in opposition to the Republican nominee. (some of you will say, do you have proof they deliberately did this. The answer is no but in nearly 40 years of voting in Duval County I have never seen a write in candidate before or since this election) The Republican Primary determined who was going to be my Senator and I was shut out of the process. Lesson learned and the next week I registered as a Republican.