Why are repubs listed first on every race on my Florida sample ballot?

[trumad]

It's repub first, Dem second and everyone else third. What's up with that?

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. How are you voting on the judges and the amendment changes?

[trumad]

9. To be honest...I'm not sure.

I don'ty follow local as close as I should.

[phoebe]

14. do NOT vote for McCollum for AG - Bush loyalist through and through

tied to Luis Posada Carilles and Iran-Contra hearings (read - cover for Bush and Reagan). Tell everyone you know just who this guy is and why they shouldn't vote for him.

DO your own research if you don't like mine..but here's a tiny portion of what McCollum is all about..

http://www.sptimes.com/News/102200/news_pf/State/Bill_M...
snip

During 10 terms, never facing formidable opposition, McCollum tended to focus more on national and international matters than issues more directly affecting his district. During the 1980s, he focused much of his energy trying to bolster the Contras in Nicaragua and the government of El Salvador. He and his staff frequently flew to Central America.

Serving on the Judiciary and Banking committees, he become an authority on crime and terrorism and laid down a consistently pro-business record often attacked by consumer groups.

The Public Campaign, a campaign finance reform advocacy group, in 1998 awarded him its first "Golden Leash Award," for receiving generous contributions from banking and credit card companies and promoting "special favors for his "cash constituents' at the expense of his real constituents back home."

Although his Democratic opponent for the Senate, Bill Nelson, portrays McCollum as a consistent partisan extremist, his record often shows more nuance than that.

Early in his career, for instance, McCollum led the charge to prevent the Legal Services Corp., which provides legal help to the poor, from filing class-action lawsuits. But more recently, McCollum quietly fended off efforts by the GOP leadership to eliminate Legal Services funding.

[C_U_L8R]

2. because R comes before D

in bizarro bush world

[undeterred]

3. alphabetical order, Repuke style

[nashville_brook]

4. uh, b/c FL is a stinking pit of corruption

[rzemanfl]

5. I think it depends on which party has the Governor's mansion.

Don't have time right now to look it up.

[Fredda Weinberg]

19. Give a kewpie doll for the correct response. n/t

[Critters2]

6. Charles Bronson for Commissioner of Ag

That should push some reform through.

[WatchWhatISay]

7. It may be based on which party won the last governors election

just a theory

[SoCalDem]

22. I think some states use that method.

It should be alphabetical... just like in 3rd grade

[nemo137]

8. Sometimes, they do a coin toss.

Winner gets top spot. I think that's how they do it here in Illinois.

[elehhhhna]

15. Can't be. Reeps would steal the coin, every time.

[Dr.Phool]

10. Absentee ballot is the same

Republicans listed first in all races.

[sweetheart]

11. because of this known bias:

The Effects of Ballot Position on Election Outcomes
Jonathan GS Koppell1 and Jennifer A. Steen2

This article presents evidence of name-order effects in balloting from a study of the 1998 Democratic primary in New York City, in which the order of candidates' names was rotated by precinct. In 71 of 79 individual nominating contests, candidates received a greater proportion of the vote when listed first than when listed in any other position. In seven of those 71 contests the advantage to first position exceeded the winner's margin of victory, suggesting that ballot position would have determined the election outcomes if one candidate had held the top spot in all precincts.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046%2Fj....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. It's Either A Coin Toss Or Who Won The Previous Election

eom

[EFerrari]

13. Because the Republicans are the default. n/t

[rzemanfl]

16. Looked it up, it is the party that got the highest number of votes

for Governor in the last general election. Thought I could paste the text here but it didn't work and I have to leave.

[Critters2]

17. Is it just me? Or does that seem like a bad idea?

Giving the incumbent the advantage doesn't seem democratic to me.

[rzemanfl]

21. I thought it was fair when Lawton Chiles was Governor. n/t

[GrantDem]

18. Not sure about Florida But....

In Indiana the party of Secretary of State gets their names first on the ballot.

[Rex]

20. To make it easier to count the votes! R R R R R R R R R R R R

nt