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Mar 9, 2008 8:19 pm US/Eastern
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Dems Debate Best Way To Seat Michigan, Florida
WASHINGTON (AP) ―
Some Democrats said Sunday that the best way to give Florida's Democrats a voice in electing a candidate for president lies with the U.S. Postal Service.
The Democratic National Committee stripped Florida and Michigan of all their convention delegates - a total of 313 - for holding their primaries too early, making both contests meaningless. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won both states, but no delegates. Her rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, did not appear on Michigan's ballot.
The disqualification of Florida and Michigan has created a headache for the Democratic party due to the unexpected closeness of the race between Obama and Clinton. Officials from both states are trying to figure out how best to resolve the issue before the national convention in August.
DNC Chairman Howard Dean said a mail-in primary is "actually a very good process."
"Every voter gets a ballot in the mail," the former Vermont governor said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "It's comprehensive, you get to vote if you're in Iraq or in a nursing home. It's not a bad way to do this."
As for who pays, Dean said, "That is a problem," reiterating that the party needs its money for the general election campaign against Republican John McCain.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D) Florida, said the date had been changed by a Republican governor and legislature last spring. He said Democratic leaders in the state senate offered an amendment to try to move the primary back to its original date of Feb. 5, but the amendment was defeated.
"I felt so strongly about the right of people's vote to count that I even sued Howard Dean and the DNC," Nelson said. "The federal judge didn't see it our way. So, if we're not going to have the DNC seat the delegation… then the only thing I know to do is to do it over. You can't put up the election machinery, so you've got to go to a different device. I would suggest mailing a ballot to every registered voter in Florida and the state government counts the votes just like an absentee ballot."
He went on to say that the Florida Democratic Party would have to raise the money. He expects a mail-in election would cost around $6 million.
Dean also suggested the state Democratic party might foot the bill. Florida's political parties, unlike the DNC, can accept unlimited contributions.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., appeared to be amenable to a mail-in solution for his state, though with less enthusiasm.
Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Levin said doing the election again would be against state law. "That can't be changed, and that can't be paid for," he said. Levin also said caucuses would be difficult, with 500 potential sites.
"The one possibility would be some kind of a mail-in caucus," he said. "But there's some real problems with that, too. Not just cost, but the security issue. How do you make sure that hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million or more ballots can be properly counted and that duplicate ballots can be avoided?"
Obama currently has more delegates than Clinton, but that could be eclipsed if Clinton were to win a large enough portion of Florida and Michigan's delegates.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)