Florida, Michigan work on solutions

Florida, Michigan work on solutions

Officials in both states are considering their options.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Democrats plan to propose a vote-by-mail presidential primary despite objections from members of the state’s congressional delegation to a do-over vote.

State Senate Democratic leader Steve Geller said the party hopes to have a proposal ready by today that would allow a 30-day review period and a vote by the party’s executive committee April 12 on whether to hold the election. A likely deadline for mail-in ballots to be returned would be June 3.

Democrats in Florida and Michigan have been scrambling to come up with an alternative to ensure their delegates will be seated at the national convention in Denver this summer. The Democratic National Committee punished the two states for moving their primaries ahead of Feb. 5 and stripped them of all their delegates.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won Florida and Michigan, although Clinton was the only major candidate on the ballot in Michigan.

“In my view there are two options — honor the results or hold new primary elections. I don’t see any other solutions that are fair and honor the commitment that 2.5 million voters made in the Democratic primaries in those two states,” Clinton said Wednesday.

Rival Sen. Barack Obama has said he is concerned about accuracy and fairness with a mail-in vote organized so quickly. The Clinton campaign has not commented on the mail-in option, except to say they will accept a do-over of the vote and “consider other scenarios as appropriate.”

Michigan Democratic Party leaders were considering several options to get their delegates seated, including a mail-in vote or a state-run Democratic primary that would be held in May or June and paid for by Democratic donors. The latter plan would have to get Republican lawmakers’ approval and faces numerous other hurdles.

Despite the possible problems, four Michigan Democratic leaders uncommitted to any candidate plan to run the idea past the Obama and Clinton campaigns Thursday during separate talks. Democratic National Committee member Debbie Dingell, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and Ron Gettelfinger are in that group.

Clinton also told NPR in an interview that she believes the Michigan results are fair and should be honored even though Obama’s name wasn’t on the ballot.

“That was his choice, remember,” she said. “There was no rule or requirement that he take his name off the ballot, and his supporters ran a very aggressive campaign to try to get people to vote uncommitted. So it wasn’t that he didn’t participate at all in fact there was a real effort to get people vote uncommitted, and I still won 55 percent of the vote.”

Forty percent of the voters chose uncommitted. Obama removed his name as part of an agreement not to campaign in the state because it violated party rules.