Webloggin » Shhh. Don't Tell them that Mark Foley Isn't Running

Democrats are once again proving that they are not confident enough in themselves to allow an informed public to vote. Thus is the resistence by the Florida Democratic Party to prevent election supervisors from putting up signs at the polls telling voters that ballots cast for Foley will actually go to Negron.

MIAMI (Reuters) – The state that gave the world butterfly ballots and the hanging chad is headed for a new battle over whether and how voters should be told that disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley has dropped out of the Florida congressional race.

Foley, a six-term Republican congressman, resigned his office and checked into an alcohol rehab center last week after copies of his overly friendly messages to teen-age male congressional pages set off a scandal that could threaten his party’s majority in Congress.

Rules prohibit taking Foley’s name off the ballot so close to the November 7 election. So the Republicans’ replacement nominee, Joe Negron, asked election supervisors to post signs at the polls telling voters that ballots cast for Foley will actually go to Negron.

Democrats cried foul, contending that such a notice is tantamount to posting a partisan political advertisement inside voting stations, which is not allowed.

“What they’re attempting to do is electioneering communications, which is illegal because you can’t do that within 100 feet of a polling place,” said Florida Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bubriski.

Now I know what you are thinking. How can anyone not know that Foley resigned and is not part of this election? Well believe it or I know people who hadn’t heard of the Foley scandal as of 2 days ago.

It’s not so much that the people in those Florida districts wouldn’t know about Foley anyway. It’s just that this is such a rare event that they may not know that a vote for Foley will go to his replacement. If anything it surely would be confusing to a bunch of people who supposedly are so frail that they can’t navigate a butterfly ballot. You would think that Democrats would want to guide them with all the particulars since they are so concerned about disenfranchising the voting public. But then that would be sort of a lie now; wouldn’t it? It would be in my opinion.

This is just another example that Democrats are so desperate to get into office that they can’t even risk having a fully informed public show up to vote on election day.

Others:
Wizbang: Everything I needed to know about the Foley scandal I learned from the Democratic talking points