Prediction: Florida is going to screw up the election again

Think you’ll know who won the presidency before you go to bed November 6? Think again. There’s a one-word reason: Florida. Allow me to digress.

My wife and I just returned from early voting here in beautiful Bonita Springs. We waited two and a half hours to get into the polling place. It was quite festive actually. There was an armed security guard performing karaoke in the parking lot and couples dancing in line. Nobody complained. Everyone was proud and honored to be doing their duty.

But here’s the problem: The ballot in Florida is four large (e.g. 8 ½" x 14”) pages long. Two-sided no less.

In addition to voting for president, senator and representative along with members of local fire commissions, hospital boards, school boards, mosquito control commissions, etc., Floridians are being asked to vote on 11 – count ‘em, eleven – constitutional amendments, some of which require four or five paragraphs to explain. A few of the amendments are ridiculous. For example, should Florida's constitution be amended to allow a representative from a council of student body presidents of state-run colleges to sit on the board of governors of the state university system? Who gives a rat's ass? 

A man with a microphone kept announcing to those of us waiting in the line that, if you came prepared -- had read the proposed amendments and already knew how you were going to vote (we did) -- it would take you five to ten minutes to complete the ballot. But if you hadn’t, you would need an average of 25 to 30 minutes. Elderly people, I would imagine, will need more time than that. And there are millions of elderly voters in Florida.

Word is already out that it’s taking an inordinate amount of time to vote. A friend spent four and a half hours in line Saturday, the first day of early voting. Millions of Floridians are going to avoid early voting, and, instead, will show up at their local precincts on election day. And many of them, due to the complexity of the Florida ballot, aren’t going to get to the front of the line until the wee hours of the day after the election.

In short, Florida, the fourth most populous state in the country, a state where the presidential race is a dead heat, the state that made the hanging chad famous, is going to wreak havoc with this election, just as it did in 2000. It’s going to take a long, long time until the final results from Florida are certified and added to the votes from the rest of the country. And we’re all going to be waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

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