Ahead of next week’s Presidential Preference Primary, WGCU’s Andrea Perdomo sought the help of University of South Florida Distinguished University Professor Emerita and Political Analyst, Susan MacManus, to answer local voters’ election questions.
Hi, my name is Ariel Joel. I live in Naples, Florida. And I was just wondering what happens to the campaign funds that have already been donated to candidate to drop out of the race?
Susan MacManus:
The Florida Election Commission lays out very strict rules on how people can use campaign funds once they've dropped out. Most of all, they spend it and they can spend it on things like taking care of expenses or outstanding for printing brochures or mailers or doing polling or hiring staffers. You know, in other words, any outstanding bill directly related their campaign. They can also use those funds to make a contribution to a charitable organization or to transfer it to a state, local or national party, and they can even transfer it to future campaigns that they might run in. What they can't do is spend it on personal things like clothing or groceries or tuition. And some of these sound outlandish but this is Why the federal election Commission's had to make explicit rules. Some people were trying to do it on things like that or even country clubs or health clubs or something else. But those are explicitly outlawed.
I'm Mike Donlan from Fort Myers, Florida. And I'd like to know how somebody becomes a delegate in Florida.
Susan MacManus:
You have to go to the state party website, and it will lay out for you exactly when and how you can become a delegate. The rules are different and the methods of selecting delegates are different for the Florida Democratic Party versus the Republican Party of Florida. There are lots of positions available. I encourage someone who's really interested in this to quickly go on the website, because time is a-wasting. Some of the selection, which is often done at individual congressional district meetings—some of the selection is going to take place within the next couple of weeks. I will start say, I encourage people who are interested in particularly younger and diverse populations. Please go take a look at it because both parties really want to send diverse delegations to their national party conventions.
Hi, I'm Jim Goin from Naples. And I'd like to know why Florida has closed primaries.
Susan MacManus:
Florida has had a closed primary system since 1913. We're only one of 14 states that have closed primaries. The argument then and now in favor of closed primaries is that a political party wants to have only members of their party making the selection for which of their party's candidates will go to the general election representing that party. And that's why both political parties in Florida have really fought hard to keep the closed primary, even though there's now some thought of moving to some form of an open primary. But you can imagine if you're a Florida Democrat, do you want someone who is a republican coming in and voting in your primary and maybe selecting a candidate that you as a party and a democrat really don't want, and vice versa. primaries are for a party to nominate a candidate to run against the other party's nominee in the general election. So primaries are a nominating process. The political parties argue we want only members of our party to participate in the nominating process to select the nominee that we feel is best representing us in the general election.
My name is Kim. I'm from Fort Myers and my question would be for the delegates that were awarded before the candidates dropped out. We'll take Pete Buttigieg, for example. So, he has delegates so do those delegates go to—who do they go to or do they just not count anymore?
They absolutely count. Because, believe it or not, Democratic Party rules do not technically bind a pledge delegate to vote for that candidate, that pledge delegate is free to vote for whomever they choose. So what happens is, a lot of times—and I expect this will happen with Buttigieg—the person who's dropped out will recommend to the delegates that have been pledged to support them, who in their place, a pledged delegate should support. So that's basically how it works.
Hi, my name is Kevin from Estero. And I'm wondering, since Florida has a closed primary system, how different Do you think the results would be if there was an open primary system? So, for example, with as many people that are independent or not affiliated with a party, do you think the results would be a lot different one way or the other for a particular candidate?
Susan MacManus:
There really isn’t any way of knowing, because we do know that people are independent for a lot of different reasons. So, it would really be dependent from election to election or even from race to race as to whether someone is really liking or disliking a specific candidate, and would choose to vote in a party's primary for either of those two reasons. In Florida, though, we do know that younger and minority voters make up a larger share of registered no party affiliation or independents in our state. But even there, they're not always on the same page politically, even though they lean a little bit more democratic. So obviously, the Sanders supporters would try to make the argument that these NPAs, if they had been allowed to vote in the preference primary, that they would have made a difference in him, possibly winning Florida, but that's a stretch. After all, it's spring break this week.
My name is Brandon. I'm from Fort Myers, Florida. My question is, like, the Supervisor of Elections in each precinct, why can't they, like, advertise at like Walmart or Publix or even at like public places like universities? Like, is there something stopping them from doing that?
Susan MacManus:
Supervisors have Elections Offices run on tight budgets that have to be approved by their county Commission's so obviously they have to have a budget. And as you know, advertising is quite expensive. It doesn't say that individual places like Walmart or Publix could have signs on their own. But what you see County Supervisor of Elections spending more of their money on is sending out very helpful sample ballots to registered voters and each precinct, or information on changes and voting precinct location. Some of them print up brochures or handouts on, you know, where to vote when, when to register by deadlines, that kind of thing. So, it's not likely that their budgets are going to go far enough to be able to advertise in lots of places. The good news, however, is that every Supervisor of Elections in Florida has an excellent online site from which a person can glean information.
I'm Pam James from estero, Florida. And my question is, what is the difference between a caucus and a primary and why is Florida's a primary?
Susan MacManus:
A caucus is an in-person kind of event that people from a particular party, they go to different locations, and they get together and they talk about the candidates and then they separate themselves out into different parts of the room and they do a head count of how many people support each candidate, and they submit those numbers to a central tabulation at party headquarters and they can count up the preferences across the state. The reason why caucuses are going out very rapidly is they're very restrictive. So it's not a very representative form of selecting a party nominee. So that's why so many states have gotten rid of caucuses. In a primary, of course, you vote you don't have to be physically at the location.
