May 18, 2013
For more than four hours Monday, Democratic lawmakers met with the
Democratic National Committee, state party leaders, and lawyers, trying
to decide how to get the Florida's 210 delegates seated. State Senator
Steve Geller says the party only has two real options; ask the nation
committee to seat the delegates based on the result of the January 29th
election or call for a mail-in ballot. In either case, the clock is ticking.
"To overseas and our military, you have to mail the ballots 45 days in advance, before that there’s a thirty day comment period which is required under DNC rules,” says Sen. Geller (D-Broward County, FL).
The deadline to have Florida’s delegates seated is June 10th.
Florida Democratic party leaders aren’t speaking publicly about a redo
election, but sources say a decision is coming in the next couple of days.
With the cost of a mail in election estimated at up to 6 million dollars, Super delegate Allan Katz says another election of any kind isn't worth the money. Katz suggests splitting the delegates.
“Recognizing what the outcome would be are democrats not better off spending their money to elect a members of congress, elect democratic justices,” says Katz.
The governor has said Florida taxpayers won’t pay for a do over. That
leaves the cost up to the state party or the candidates to pay. Still
there are some concerns hosting the state’s first mail-in election on
such short notice.
“Do we have the state help us, do we just go out and hire a private accounting firm,” Sen. Geller says.
If a mail in election is held, Party officials are looking at June 7th
as the deadline for the ballots to be counted.
If a mail in do over election is held and the DNC recognizes the results, Florida Democrats would get about 60 more delegates as a bonus for holding its primary after May 10th.
