As more Florida, Manatee County voters disdain party affiliation, new primary procedures considered

As more Florida, Manatee County voters disdain party affiliation, new primary procedures considered

TALLAHASSEE -- Armed with data showing the fastest-growing segment of Florida's electorate is choosing no party affiliation, a bipartisan group of activists is pushing for a constitutional amendment to open Florida's closed primary system to all voters.

The All Voters Vote amendment was delivered to the Florida Division of Elections with the hope of getting enough signatures to place it on the 2016 ballot.

Miami lawyer Gene Stearns, who is leading the effort, said the goal is to encourage elected officials to listen to a broader swath of voters by giving voice to the growing number of Floridians written out of the state's primary election system because they choose not to register with any political party.

"The two parties are becoming increasingly extreme and increasingly shrill because the people who control the outcomes dictate what you have to do to be nominated to a particular party," said Stearns, who served as chief of staff to former House Speaker Dick Pettigrew and campaign manager to former Gov. Reubin Askew, both Democrats. "The result of this is more and more people are becoming unwilling to identify with either of them. The consequence of their collective decision is making politics worse and governments more damaged than they have already become."

By law, only when a candidate has no opposition from outside the party can all voters cast a vote in that race in the primary.

The proposed amendment, if passed, would allow all registered voters to vote in primaries for congressional and state partisan offices regardless of party affiliation of voters or candidates.

The candidate who receives the most votes and the runner-up would advance to the general election. In state elections, the candidate with more than 50 percent of primary votes wins the election.

If the measure makes it to the ballot and is approved by 60 percent of voters, it would take effect in the 2018 election cycle.

"The way our primary system works, it excludes people from the process," said Jim Smith, a Republican and former Florida attorney general and secretary of state, who supports the initiative.

"When this has been adopted in other states, it really hasn't changed the makeup of Republican and Democrats elected, but it has changed the conversation -- and it's a conversation that a broader spectrum of voters want to hear candidates talk about."

The group cites statistics and the results of a poll it has commissioned:

In 2014, the monthly net registration figures show that an average of 55 percent of net voters (new registrants minus those who were taken out of the system) were of neither major party.

The number of unaffiliated voters in Florida has grown 380 percent since 1990 and is now at 27 percent. It is expected to rise to 29 percent by November 2016 and 33 percent by 2022, during the next reapportionment cycle.

The trend of voters rejecting both major parties will continue as older voters -- who tend to register with a major party -- die, and younger voters increasingly reject both major parties.

When the ballot language was read to registered voters, 65 percent supported it and, after hearing questions about the voting process, support rose to 70 percent.

In Manatee County, 23.5 percent of voters are registered with no party affiliation. Mike Bennett, Manatee County supervisor of elections, said he doesn't know how the proposed changes would go over in the county, but he does not personally support it.

"In a primary, people pick who they want to lead their party," Bennett said. "Those with no party affiliation then can express their opinion in the general election."

The Manatee County Democratic and Republican parties did not return requests for comment.

Smith, who served as secretary of state from 1987-95, said he recommended the Legislature "take a look at something like this" 20 years ago as he saw voters were increasingly registering outside major parties.

He pointed to gridlock in Washington, and the stalemate over health care reform in Florida, and said he believes partisan extremism makes it politically impossible for people to compromise.

"The last session is a good example -- where the philosophies are so far apart that they don't get together and compromise," Smith said.

Other supporters include former Democrat state legislator and Florida State University President Sandy D'Alemberte, and "prominent Republicans and Democrats who on a personal level all agreed with it but can't be 'identified' with it because they fear they'll be 'primaried,' " Stearns said.

Being "primaried" has become a fixture in the lexicon of partisan politics. It generally refers to an incumbent who faces a primary challenge from a candidate backed by a wealthy donor or party faction because the incumbent is considered insufficiently partisan.

The group has raised $103,000 of the $3.5 million Stearns projects will be needed to get the measure on the ballot and passed. Contributions have come primarily from Stearns' law firm, Coral Gables developer John Abdo, Miami liquor distributor CC1 Cos. and Miami Beach businessman Chris Findlater. The political committee has spent $80,000, nearly all of it on a California-based signature gathering company.

Known as the "Top Two nonpartisan primary system," it has been in use in Washington state since 2004, in California since 2010, in Louisiana since 1975, and in Nebraska since 1936.

It's on the ballot in Arizona in 2016. In Mississippi, a citizen's commission recommended the state switch to Top Two nonpartisan primaries, and efforts are underway to place the Top Two system on the ballot in South Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Illinois, Maine, Alaska, Colorado and Nevada -- in addition to Florida, according to OpenPrimaries.org.

Opposition has primarily come from the political parties that fear any change to the status quo, supporters say.

Scott Arceneaux, director of the Florida Democratic Party, said the party is unlikely to take a formal position against the initiative, but he believes it would weaken the party system and lead to voter confusion.

He prefers an open primary to allow all candidates to appeal to voters with no party affiliation in the primary and allow for a candidate from each major party to be on the ballot in the general election.

"It's often sold as a way to moderate the electorate and force people to appeal to a broader base," he said. "But if the farthest right Republican becomes one of the top two vote getters, you don't end up with a moderate."

Glenn Burhans, a lawyer with the Stearns, Miller and Weaver law firm who drafted the ballot language, counters the goal is to elect candidates who reflect the electorate.

"If those are the top two choices of the voters, that should be the result," he said. "They are going to be answerable to their constituents in the next election and they are not going to be able to cater to a small segment of the voting population."

"This isn't about policy. It's about power," said John Opdycke, president of Open Primaries, the group promoting the system. "Whether it's a red state or blue state, you end up with legislators who are more open to hearings form all voters. That doesn't make them more moderate or more centrist. It makes them more accountable."

Bradenton Herald online\political reporter Kate Irby contributed to this report.

This story was originally published July 31, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "As more Florida, Manatee County voters disdain party affiliation, new primary procedures considered ."