Using primary races to manipulate elections

Monday was the last day for St Johns County citizens to register to vote in the upcoming August elections; and, it was the last day for registered voters to change their party affiliation before the Primary.

Primary elections allow the Democrats and Republicans an opportunity to select, by majority vote, the “best candidate” from their party to go on to face the “best candidate” chosen by the opposing party in the General Election.

In order for that centuries-old process to work, it presumes that only Democrats cast a ballot to determine the best Democrat to appear on the November ballot; likewise for the Republicans.

Unlike the Primary elections, the General Election is open to all registered voters. Regardless of party affiliation, everyone gets to vote. No one is “disenfranchised” — a word that politicos throw around when things don’t go their way.

Every two years, and again this year, Democrats in St Johns County are being peddled the idea that they are somehow being “disenfranchised” from the Primary Election. Nothing could be further from the truth; and, claiming so only betrays ignorance of the Primary Election process or exposes a desire to manipulate the outcome of the election.

Democrats are never supposed to vote in a Republican primary any more than Republicans are supposed to vote in a Democratic primary. Democrats could vote on August 14 — if two or more candidates from the Democrat Party would run for office. As it is, at least in St Johns County, that is rarely seen.

This year, two would-be political manipulators, Philip McDaniel, of Cultural Council fame, and Clara Cowan, of Ponte Vedra Beach, used the St Augustine Record to broadcast impassioned pleas to Democrat voters — hoping that their readers will be more sympathetic to Joseph (Ken) Bryan, a Democrat running as a Republican, than to their own civic responsibility as good citizens to participate in legitimate elections.

Despite a July 8 letter from McDaniel, who has a financial interest in campaign contributions to the Ken Bryan campaign, followed by a July 9 letter from Cowan, who also has a financial interest in campaign contributions to the Ken Bryan campaign, there was no extraordinary exodus from the Democratic Party before the July 16 deadline.

As of the close of business Friday, there are still 38,378 Democrats registered to vote — many of whom are now questioning the trustworthiness of Bryan who abandoned the Democratic Party only days after losing in the 2006 election as a Democrat.

In fact, according to records on file with the Supervisor of Elections, only two hundred twenty (220) voters changed their affiliation to Republican between July 1 and July 19.

These are the voters who did: