Monday, November 03, 2008

Credit Where Credit is Due: Charlie Crist

I'm becoming a fan of Republican Governor Charlie Crist. I mentioned him a while back for pardoning Richard Paey, a man who was jailed for taking pain medication that he had been prescribed. Now I find out he extended the voting hours in Florida even though it will almost certainly help the Democrats and he has endorsed John McCain.

Why did he do it?
At a hastily arranged news conference, Crist said the right to vote is sacred and that "many have fought and died for this right." He said he consulted a leading Democratic legislator, Rep. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, before issuing his order, and that Gelber knew of a similar order issued by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2002 that dealt with helping voters deal with new equipment. (Buzz audio here.)

As to the perception that more early voting helps Democrats, Crist said: "This is not a political decision. This is a people decision."


Kudos to Gov. Crist for actually putting country (or state) ahead of politics.

3 comments:

asher said...

Is there any reason the polls have to stay open later in Florida? I mean those senior citizens usually eat dinner at 5pm. Why do they get special treatment....Guess you can't expect them to vote as early as folks in other states. Asking too much.

Yeshivish Atheist said...

After reading a lot of the angry comments from the linked site, all I can do is laugh.

Ezzie said...

I'm a bit confused. This is early voting, not regular voting. People have known far in advance about this. While it's certainly right to make sure people are able to vote, and if there were extra long lines on election day I could see extending the hours, we're talking about extending hours for early voters. Why can't they just vote on Election Day if it didn't work out?

On the flip side, I don't get how this helps Dems, unless there's fraud. Presumably the same people getting closed out now would vote on Election Day.