Florida Top-Two Open Primary for Federal Office Initiative (2022)
| Florida Top-Two Open Primary for Federal Office Initiative | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Election date November 8, 2022 | |
| Topic Elections and campaigns | |
| Status Not on the ballot | |
| Type Constitutional amendment | Origin Citizens |
The Florida Top-Two Open Primary for Federal Office Initiative (Initiative #19-06) was not on the ballot in Florida as an initiated constitutional amendment on November 8, 2022.[1]
Measure design
The measure would have established a top-two open primary system for U.S. Senate and U.S. House primary elections in Florida.[1]
A top-two primary is a type of primary election in which all candidates are listed on the same primary ballot. The top two vote-getters, regardless of their partisan affiliations, advance to the general election. Consequently, it is possible for two candidates belonging to the same political party to win in a top-two primary and face off in the general election.[2][3] An open primary is any primary election in which a voter either does not have to formally affiliate with a political party in order to vote in its primary or can declare his or her affiliation with a party at the polls on the day of the primary even if the voter was previously affiliated with a different party.[4][5]
Text of measure
Ballot title
The proposed title was as follows:[6]
| “ | All Voters Vote in Primary Elections for United States Senate and House of Representatives[7] | ” |
Ballot summary
The proposed ballot summary was as follows:[6]
| “ | Allows all registered voters to vote in primaries for U.S. Senate and House of Representatives regardless of political party affiliation. All candidates for an office, including party nominated candidates, appear on the same primary ballot. Two highest vote getters advance to general election. If only two candidates qualify, no primary is held and winner is determined in general election. Candidate’s party affiliation may appear on ballot as provided by law. Effective January 1, 2024.[7] | ” |
Full text
The full text is available here.
Sponsors
All Voters Vote, Inc. sponsored the initiative.[6]
Path to the ballot
The state process
In Florida, the number of signatures required for an initiated constitutional amendment is equal to 8% of the votes cast in the preceding presidential election. Florida also has a signature distribution requirement, which requires that signatures equaling at least 8% of the district-wide vote in the last presidential election be collected from at least half (14) of the state's 28 congressional districts. Signatures remain valid until February 1 of an even-numbered year.[8] Signatures must be verified by February 1 of the general election year the initiative aims to appear on the ballot.
Proposed measures are reviewed by the state attorney general and state supreme court after proponents collect 25% of the required signatures across the state in each of one-half of the state's congressional districts (222,898 signatures for 2024 ballot measures). After these preliminary signatures have been collected, the secretary of state must submit the proposal to the Florida Attorney General and the Financial Impact Estimating Conference (FIEC). The attorney general is required to petition the Florida Supreme Court for an advisory opinion on the measure's compliance with the single-subject rule, the appropriateness of the title and summary, and whether or not the measure "is facially invalid under the United States Constitution."[9]
The requirements to get an initiative certified for the 2022 ballot:
- Signatures: 891,589 valid signatures
- Deadline: The deadline for signature verification was February 1, 2022. As election officials have 30 days to check signatures, petitions should be submitted at least one month before the verification deadline.
In Florida, proponents of an initiative file signatures with local elections supervisors, who are responsible for verifying signatures. Supervisors are permitted to use random sampling if the process can estimate the number of valid signatures with 99.5% accuracy. Enough signatures are considered valid if the random sample estimates that at least 115% of the required number of signatures are valid.
Details about the initiative
- The initiative was approved for circulation on March 14, 2019.[6]
- Sponsors did not submit the required number of signatures to qualify for the ballot by the deadline on February 1, 2022.[10]
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Florida Department of Elections, "Initiative 19-06 text," accessed March 14, 2019
- ↑ Taegan Goddard's Political Dictionary, "Jungle primary," accessed January 13, 2016
- ↑ National Conference of State Legislatures, "State Primary Election Types," accessed September 11, 2017
- ↑ FairVote, "Who Can Vote in Congressional Primaries," accessed August 17, 2017
- ↑ National Conference of State Legislatures, "State Primary Election Types," July 21, 2016
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedinitiative - ↑ 7.0 7.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Before the passage of Florida Senate Bill 1794 of 2020, signatures remained valid for a period of two years
- ↑ Florida State Senate, "Florida Senate Bill 1794," accessed April 13, 2020
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedMeasure
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State of Florida Tallahassee (capital) |
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