From the Committee for Fair Elections:
Not a single incumbent in Florida’s State Legislature or in Florida’s U.S. Congressional delegation was defeated in 2004. In that cycle, 72.5% of state legislative races had only one major party candidate. Of the 142 seats up for re-election, 103 were uncontested by a major party. That made Florida the second least competitive state behind Arkansas.
How could this be? The answer is redistricting.
The Committee for Fair Elections is attempting to amend Florida’s constitution to have a non-partisan committee create standards for redistricting. To get this on the 2006 ballot they must collect 750,000 signatures (currently @ 81,281) of registered Florida voters by the end of THIS YEAR.
This is the hard, boring, grunt work that is necessary to effect long term change. Please help.
Want to do more:
- Print extra copies of the petition and leave them places along with some information (I’d suggest copying and printing the left column of the front page).
- Take extra copies to family/friends/neighbors/coworkers and have them sign them. You can even mail them in for them.
- Carry with you some mail-in voter registration forms if you run across someone not registered to vote.
- Write a letter to the editor of your local paper about redistricting including the web address for the Committee for Fair Elections.
Want to do even more:
- Go here and click on your area of Florida to find the person in charge of your county’s effort. Email them and volunteer to do more.
- You can sign up here to organize a petition drive.
Non Floridians can help too:
- They accept donations.
- If you know people in Florida send them the petitions.
