Foley’s Name to Remain on Ballot but Votes will go to GOP’s Chosen Replacement
EmailABC’s Teddy Davis reports: Under Florida election law, if Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) notifies the Secretary of State that he is withdrawing as a 2006 House candidate now that he is already the party’s nominee for re-election, the Secretary of State would have to notify the Florida Republican Party of that development.
From the time that the Secretary of State sends out its letter, the Florida Republican Party would have five days to call its executive committee together and two days to pick a replacement nominee.
But the name of this replacement nominee would not actually appear on the ballot; it will be Foley’s name on the ballot.
The local supervisor of county elections will have the option of developing some method (a sign posted at the polls, for example) to notify voters that a vote for Foley will actually be counted for whomever the Florida Republican Party’s executive committee has chosen as the Foley replacement.
There will be no special election to replace Foley.
The source for this information is Sterling Ivey, the Florida Secretary of State’s communications director.
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I thought that under federal law, members of the house had to be directly elected (no proxies, no appointments, etc.). This is the only body that this applies to — for example, senators may be appointed to fill vacancies if someone dies, while in the House there needs to be a direct election. Voting for one person and then allowing another person to step into the slot isn’t constitutional. or?
Posted by: Mitchelle | September 29, 2006, 12:49 pm 12:49 pm
Of course it’s not constitutional think about who you are talking about…The Republican party. Nothing they do is consitutional, the new torture law is another perfect example!
Posted by: Melissa | September 29, 2006, 8:54 pm 8:54 pm
How could the Speaker of the House know of this and let it fester for 10-11 months? Could this be part of Rowe’s plan for keeping the house? Could this have gone all the way to Bush? Of course this is Florida where tricky politics have happened under the other Bush.
Shame on the entire group.
Posted by: Bruce | September 30, 2006, 4:04 am 4:04 am
isn’t this illegal?
Posted by: tyson | September 30, 2006, 5:14 am 5:14 am
Wow – so the results on election night are going to show tens of thousands of Repulbican votes for a child predator. eww.
Mitchelle – very good point.
Posted by: BenMurphyNYC | September 30, 2006, 7:14 am 7:14 am
The Repubs are going to have to be pretty hard pressed to find a decent candidate who wants to run with Foley’s name on the ballot. Who would put themselves in that place? Not anyone who values his political future.
Posted by: proud southern democrat | September 30, 2006, 11:47 am 11:47 am
The Constitution, our faith in the constitution and the zeal of average citizens to bolster the Constitution was lost a long time ago. As the percent of U.S. Citizens living in poverty has risen to 20% since 2000, the rest of us middle class Americans are too busy budgeting from day to day to muster any volunteer time to implement activism to retain the Constitution and the practices within. It is possible the Have’s-in the Republican Party truly do have us right where they want us, Instant Messenger or No Instant Messenger-the average American has been lulled into compliance for the benefit of the Aristocrates.
Posted by: POBox-USA | September 30, 2006, 7:30 pm 7:30 pm
How did ABC obtain the AOL IMs?
Posted by: Michael Kenny | October 1, 2006, 10:37 am 10:37 am