New Voters
 

Hello Villagers,
We are finally full time and the August 20, 2024 Primary will be our first time voting. Our sample ballots are showing County Commissioner races for Districts 1, 3 and 5 on our sample ballots. We understand that these races rotate, with Districts 2 and 4 in election years. We are in District 4.

My question is for those who have voted (or ran) in prior County Commissioner races before. Is this correct in that no matter your district #, you are still able to vote for other County Commissioners in the other districts?

We will of course call on Monday, but thought we would ask here to see if our fellow villagers might be able to help us new voters.

Yes, that is correct. All Sumter County residents vote for all districts.

Something called One Sumter passed many years ago to make it this way. Occasionally you will here about a Reverse One Sumter initiative to try to change it back to voting only for your own district.

Is it true that you cannot vote for county commissioners unless you are a registered Republican?

Yes, and it is too late to change your registration if you are not. Florida law says that each party selects its candidates to run in the general, November, election. That election then decides the winner.

However if only one party is running candidates for the November election, the time to do so is well past, then the primary becomes the general election and all voters may vote in the primary unless there are persons who file to run as write-ins. This happened the last time in the county race which resulted in several incumbents losing.

This time and in 2020 however, only Republicans were running until the very last moment when a couple Republican (Prince and Wahl in 2020, Francis and Burke this year) politicians did the paperwork to run as write-ins in the November election. This meant the primary was not the final vote and it is thus a closed primary.

Now you are free to change party registration as often as you like and anyone could have changed from NPA or Democrat to GOP to vote in this primary if they did so in a timely manner.

Lastly.. and perhaps karma... in a neighboring county a person had been running for a local office and winning without opposition as a write in for several elections and paid the small fee to do so again. At the last minute a person filed to run as a Republican against him, too late for him to change to file to run in the primary. So now the general election will only have that person on the ballot.

To clarify - you can't vote in the PRIMARY this month, unless you're a registered Republican due to the situation explained by blueash above. You can still vote in the general election in November.

... at which point there will be exactly one name on the ballot for each of the County Commissioner seats. You can vote but....

The November ballot WILL have voting on the amendments and on the choice for president.

The thing about the November election - if you go to the polls but you don't actually want that Commissioner candidate, you can vote for President, and the amendments, and intentionally NOT vote for a Commissioner. When they go to count up the votes, they'll see how many voters didn't like the singular option presented to them. The newly elected Commissioner will then know exactly how hard he has to work to earn the few votes he received.

So basically if you are not a registered Republican, you have the same choices in voting for commissioner as they would have in Russia or China - no choice. Great system.

Only in the primary, and only because there is no party competition in this primary, other than other Republicans. It's a closed primary. Many states have them, it's not a novel thing. If it were a Democrat primary, then only registered Democrats would be allowed to vote in it.

And, unlike Russia or China, here in Florida (and in other closed-party states) you can change your affiliation from whatever it was, to Republican - JUST so you can vote in the Republican primary. And then the day after the election is over you can switch back to whatever you were.

You can only vote in one Primary per election season, but which one you vote in is up to you (unless the candidate runs unopposed by anyone in the other party, at which point you still can vote in that primary if you want by affiliating with that party a couple of months before the election).

Seeing as the government knows that voters will not have a choice of commissioner in the general election, they should allow anyone to vote for commissioner in the primary. Making a voter jump through hoops to switch their party affiliation back and forth in order to exercise what should be their right to have a say in who their commissioner will be just seems like a highly successful attempt at voter suppression.

This is absolutely NOT "Voter Suppression" in any way, shape or form.

Florida is a Primary State.
There are many other states who follow these same rules.

We "checked out" election policies before we choose to move to the Great State of Florida.
We got to know our Board of Elections Supervisor upon landing here to make sure they had the knowledge to operate fair election cycles.
We invite and meet with our candidates on a regular basis to make sure they are intellectuals, not dummies looking to milk the system . We are informed voters.
Therefore, Primary Elections come as no surprise to us.

The other party did not have a motivated candidate to run.

Anyone could have run,
but they did not, so there is only one party represented, thus that party votes in the Primary for "their candidate" to move then forward into the General Election.

Candidates on both sides must be 'motivated' to do what it takes to run for election.
Evidently, there were no Democrats who chose to compete for the seat.

If the tables were turned, and there was only a Democrat running for the seat, Republicans would not be allowed to vote in their Primary.

Charging "Voter Suppression" is like saying The Villages aren't fair because they have RULES.

Where did you live before? This is very common in most states.

I’m registered as NPA and was able to vote in the Primary for nonpartisan positions.

If there is only one party fielding candidates such that there will be no choice in the general election then the primary IS open to everyone.

In THIS election, there is NOT just one party fielding candidates. In this election there are individuals registered as write-in candidates. Therefore, there WILL be a choice in the general election so the primary is closed.

Now, are these truly legitimate candidates or are they "ghost" candidates whose only interest is to close the primary? The action appears to be legal but yes, it also appears to be legal voter suppression.

Google "ghost candidate," see the number of articles discussing this around the state, then work to have the law changed.

Democrat voters don't get to vote until November in T V or nationally at this point. Well that is THEIR voting system and has nothing to do with Republican democratic system of voting. Democrats should fix their voting system.

One's comment is very offensive. Republicans have it right in The Villages. The matter starts at a LOCAL level. One doesn't like the matter... contact your local democrat representatives, work to change the non-voting "democratic" system within the democrat party and BE THE CHANGE. Democrats WANT to vote in primary elections then fix the democrat party - apparently they need to find nominees and hold a local primary, then next voting season.... run! No brainer.

Quit insulting the local/(national) democratic system the Republicans in The Villages employ.The old saying "You made the bed now lie in it" comes to mind.