Florida Mail-In Primary Proposal

The 2008 primary season for the Democrats has become a nightmare.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a fierce battle. Then there's the issue of Michigan and Florida being penalized for holding their primaries too early.

WASHINGTON -- A consensus began to emerge Sunday that the best way to give Florida's Democrats a voice in electing a candidate for president lies with the U.S. Postal Service.

The Democratic National Committee stripped Florida and Michigan of all their convention delegates — a total of 313 — for holding their primaries too early, making both contests meaningless. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won both states, but no delegates. Her rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, did not appear on Michigan's ballot.

But the disqualification of Florida and Michigan has created a headache for the Democratic party due to the unexpected closeness of the race between Obama and Clinton. Officials from both states are trying to figure out how best to resolve the issue before the national convention in August.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean said a mail-in primary is "actually a very good process."

"Every voter gets a ballot in the mail," the former Vermont governor said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "It's comprehensive, you get to vote if you're in Iraq or in a nursing home. It's not a bad way to do this."

As for who pays, Dean said, "That is a problem," reiterating that the party needs its money for the general election campaign against Republican John McCain.

He also ruled out the state of Florida, where Republican Gov. Charlie Crist has nixed the idea. Dean suggested the state Democratic party might foot the bill. Florida's political parties, unlike the DNC, can accept unlimited contributions.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., supports the mail-in solution, comparing it to an absentee ballot process. He also pinned his hopes on the state party to pay for it.

"Since Governor Dean has said he's not going to do it in the DNC, the Florida Democratic Party's going to have to go out and raise the money," he said. "We're looking at about $6 million."

Under no circumstances should the taxpayers foot the bill for a do-over primary.

Republican citizens or those of other or no political affiliation should pay for the Democrats' mess.

This is the Democrats' problem and they should pay whatever it takes to solve it.

I question an all mail-in solution.

It's really not the same as absentee ballots in an election. That's on a smaller scale. The potential for tampering with ballots would be enormous.

Remember how the Democrats did all they could to have the absentee ballots of our military forces serving abroad tossed out on various technicalities?

Imagine the potential battles over disqualifying ballots in an entire state. And then there's the issue of fraud.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., weiged in:

Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Levin said doing the election again would be against state law. "That can't be changed, and that can't be paid for," he said. Levin also said caucuses would be difficult, with 500 potential sites.

"The one possibility would be some kind of a mail-in caucus," he said. "But there's some real problems with that, too. Not just cost, but the security issue. How do you make sure that hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million or more ballots can be properly counted and that duplicate ballots can be avoided?"

"Mail-in caucus"?

How do you stage a mail-in caucus?

I don't get that.

Levin points out the security issues of dealing with a million or more ballots.

I think a mail-in thing has the potential to be dramatically more messy than the hanging chads and recounts of the 2000 election.

Think of all the possible legal challenges of the results.

What a mess!

I have to wonder if the DNC regrets stripping Florida and Michigan of their delegates.

How did the Dems expect this all to play out anyway?

They had to know it wouldn't be good.