"It's Time for the House to Pick Up the Pieces in Florida's 13th District"

Roll Call has published my guest commentary (reprinted with permission to be available without a subscription here). It begins:

Remember the infamous 'butterfly ballot' of Palm Beach County, Fla., in the 2000 presidential election? Back then, poor ballot design appeared to have caused many supporters of Democrat Al Gore to vote for conservative third-party candidate Pat Buchanan for president, effectively allowing George Bush to win Florida's electoral votes and the presidency. The courts said there was nothing that could have been done about the problems with the ballot even though there was strong evidence that more Florida voters came to their polling places intending to vote for Gore than for Bush.

The elections last month brought us the 2006 version of the butterfly ballot. This time, it appears that poor ballot design or machine malfunctions with electronic voting machines caused thousands of voters to skip the race for Florida's 13th Congressional district, leading to a 369-vote victory by the Republican candidate over the Democratic one. Once again the matter is in court, and once again the courts are not likely to give a remedy.

But this time there's another option. The House can -- and should -- declare the seat vacant, requiring the seat to be filled by a special election.

See also this related editorial ($) and article ($).

Bob Bauer, one of Jennings' lawyers, thinks my call for House involvement is premature. Just to be clear: I think the discovery process in the court should go forward. We should absolutely let the process find out if there was machine malfunction or, worse, fraud. This is important not just for FL-13 but for the country. The parties should have full access to test the voting machinery and software.

But my point is that if the legal process does not lead to a new election, the House should make a political decision to require one.

Posted by Rick Hasen at December 6, 2006 06:49 AM