Category Archives: Florida

And then I come home to find How easy is it to hardware hack a Voting Machine?

A couple of untrained 54-year old women from Black Box Voting bought $12 worth of tools and in four minutes penetrated the memory card seals, removed, replaced the memory card, and sealed it all up again without leaving a trace.

The Experiment on an actual Diebold voting machine shows that the seals do nothing whatever to protect against access by insiders after testing, and the seals also are worthless in jurisdictions like Washington, Florida, California, and many other locations where voting machines are sent home with poll workers for days before the election.

Just does wonders for your confidence in the democratic process…

It’s election day today in Florida. We have the primaries, a school board election, and also the judicial elections and a local ballot question (other parts of Miami also have some big county commission races, but the terms are staggered and I live in a district which has an off year). The judicial elections — the part that gets by far the least attention from voters or media — may be the most important part.

Governor (D primary): Jim Davis

At the top of the ballot there’s the race that got the most attention: the gubanatorial primary. As a registered Democrat, I get to choose between two candidates I’d happily vote for over either of the Republicans, so I’m already ahead whether Rod Smith or Jim Davis wins. Both candidates bring a different package of virtues and blemishes to the table and I can’t say I have violent feelings about this one. But on balance, I’m going to vote for Davis. I was leaning that way anyway, but what tipped me was the multi-million dollar third-party ad blitz for Smith in the last few days. It was mean, negative, misleading — and financed by Big Sugar.

I’ll be voting for the ballot proposition to give county commissioners a real salary instead of the pittance they now receive. They run a huge budget and, who knows, it might reduce the propensity to make backroom deals for cash.

That said, I resent the one-sided way in which the ballot summary is worded:

Shall the Charter be amended to provide that County Commissioners no longer receive the $6,000 annual salary established in 1957, but shall receive instead the population based salary provided by State statutory formula (currently approximately $88,919) and used by other Florida counties, including Broward County?

Talk about stacking the deck.

School Board (District 6): Gus Barrera (incumbent).

I have a vote in a local school board race in District 6. It’s a sign of how dismal the choices are that I will be voting for a man who supports book-banning. Yes, “Gus” Barrera not only voted to ban Vamos a Cuba, a picture book for little children on the grounds it failed to be anti-Castro enough, he voted to waste more money appealing the school board’s loss in court. Why am I voting for him? Because the other guy is worse.

Barrera at least voted not to ban the book the first time the issue arose, thus giving the school system’s normal procedures a chance to examine it. And to their credit the parents and bureaucrats both said to keep the book — at which point Barrera voted to overturn their decision. Barrera’s opponent’s main campaign issue is that he would have voted to ban the book right away. No thanks.

AG (D primary): Walter (Skip) Campbell

There’s a race on for Florida’s Attorney General, often a springboard to higher office (the Republican incumbent is the leading candidate for Governor). I have to confess I’ve paid too little attention to this one (is it not seriously contested?). Skip Campbell is endorsed by DFA and by the Miami Herald. While I don’t fully trust the Herald in non-judicial elections — its instincts are very status quo — anyone who can get both these endorsements is likely to be someone I’m going to feel comfortable with.

There is, however, one place where I do tend to be a status quo voter, and that’s in the judicial races. I like voting for judicial incumbents unless they’re doing a bad job (examples include ethical lapses, sloppy rulings, and consistently poor in-court behavior). This year I’ll be voting for all but two of the incumbents running for re-election.

The first exception is Judge Ivan Hernandez. I’ll be voting for his opponent in Group 4, Robin Faber. The reasons why this is an important vote are well summarized in the Miami Herald editorial endorsing Faber.

The second exception is Judge Ana Maria Pando who was admonished by the Florida Supreme Court last year for failing to disclose a campaign finance loan from her parents in previous elections. In Group 10 I’ll be voting for Sari Teichman Addicott.

There are also a number of open judicial seats — some where it’s a tough call.

Miami-Dade Circuit Court

Group 25: Murphy (I) [(I) means incumbent] (Herald endorsement)

Group 42: Schwartz (I)

Group 78 (open seat): one of the toughest calls — all the candidates seem to have both virtues and question marks. The Herald endorsed Bardawil, but she didn’t get that great a qualification rating from the Dade bar poll — 57% suggested she was unqualified! At 37 years old she’s also the least experienced lawyer in the race. However, Jose R. Sanchez-Gronlier did equally badly, and Valerie R. Manno Schurr, only did somewhat better (47% rated her unqualified). I remember Ms. Schurr from her previous race in 2004. She’s experienced as a lawyer, had a prior career as a nurse, and is a UM law grad. I liked her in the 2004 race, and I think she’s my choice in this group.

Group 79 (open seat) has two candidates, Marie Abigail Davidson and Antonio “Tony” Marin. The Herald endorsed Marin, a pillar of the local Cuban establishment, as did the pseudonymous Rumpole. He also gets a much, much higher rating in the Dade bar poll, so I’m voting for Martin.

Update Group 80 (open seat) has three candidates: Mario Garcia Jr.; Marisa Tinkler Mendez; and Catherine B. Parks. Garcia is out of the running as far as I am concerned — he has too little legal experience without anything I know of to make up for the lack. The Herald’s not-so-convincing endorsement is for Marisa Tinkler Mendez, but on paper Parks looks like a slightly better candidate on the basis of her diverse experience as a litigator (20 years), a trauma nurse, and especially as an active citizen in various local organizations. For this one I may need to call people I know until I find someone who knows them personally.

Miami-Dade County Court

Group 1: Shirylon McWhorter (I) (Herald endorsement). Judge McWhorter failed the Save Dade test (about which more below) — but so did her opponent.

Group 4: Robin Faber (running against incumbent) (even the Herald doesn’t support incumbent Ivan Hernandez — although the PBA does.)

Group 9 (open): Both the Herald and Rumpole endorse Victoria Del Pino over Joel Jacobi. The Dade bar poll scores are not that different, although Del Pino slightly edges Jacobi. I’m planning on voting for Del Pino on the grounds that she seems to have more relevant experience, and that even if it were a tie all other things being equal I’d probably like to see more women on the bench. (Both candidates fail the Save Dade test.)

Group 10: Judge Ana Maria Pando is the incumbent, but I’m voting for Sari Teichman Addicott for the same reasons as in the Herald’s endorsement. Read the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in the Pando case for yourself.

Group 11: Karen Mills Francis (I)

Group 12: An important vote for Judge Steve Leifman (I). It would be sad if he lost. See the Herald and Rumpole. Leifman is tops in the bar poll too.

Group 14: Judge Michael Samuels (I) (Herald endorsement)

Group 27: Judge Sheldon “Shelly” Schwartz (I). Another valued veteran. Herald likes him too.

Group 39: Judge Bronwyn Catherine Miller (I). I actually have met Judge Miller. She seems smart. And I hear she’s a good judge. And the Herald likes her.

Group 40: Judge Bonnie Lano Rippingille (I). Herald. The challenger, Don Cohn, sounds good too, but I’m for retention during good behavior.

Group 43 (open): Three candidates. Do NOT vote for Cecilia Armenteros-Chavez. I don’t know much about Michael A. Bienstock; both he and Jose L. ”Joe” Fernandez have somewhat similar Bar poll scores. The cognoscenti and the Herald much prefer Fernandez, and I have no reason to disagree.

Continue reading →

Via boing-boing comes this amazing story of campus cops gone wild at the University of Florida. (Note that since UF is a public university, the cops are subject to the same constitutional constraints as other cops.):

Phil Sandifer, a grad student in English at Gainesville’s University of Florida … was harassed by campus cops for publishing fiction on his LiveJournal. The cops — acting on a tip that appears to have originated from people displeased with Sandifer’s Wikipedia editing style — argued that because Sandifer’s story depicted a murder, he should be fingerprinted and have his DNA taken in order to ensure that he wasn’t responsible for any unsolved murders.

As I investigated this story, the campus cops stonewalled me, but used the fact that I was leaving messages for them to attempt to frighten Sandifer into allowing them to fingerprint and DNA-sample him, saying that a journalist was on the story and he’d better exonerate himself before the story broke. They went to Sandifer’s (righteously angry and uncooperative) faculty advisors and, in front of them, leaned on Sandifer for his biometrics and threatened to retrieve his DNA from his garbage if he wouldn’t concede to a DNA swab.

Mitchell J Silverman, an attorney in Hollywood, Florida, used the state’s sunshine laws to get hold of the police reports on the event.

The report is remarkable for what it doesn’t say: it is an apparent fabrication that contradicts the eyewitness reports of everyone I spoke to involved in this story.

The Washington Monthly Magazine has produced an idiosyncratic list of rankings of undergraduate colleges. I haven’t looked at the methodology, but the rankings for Florida are quite suspect from the point of view of a person trying to decide where to send their kids. That has nothing to do with law schools, but bear with me.

The University of Florida is ranked 37th. The Florida Institute of Technology is ranked 121st. FSU is 132nd. Nova is 157th. The University of South Florida is 158th. FIU is 169th. And UM is 170th.

I’m not offended by the idea that the undergraduate college at UF might beat UM on a value-for-money scale: especially if one is weighing the cost of in-state tuition, UF might well be a better deal for your educational dollar despite the gigantic class size and the location in Gainesville. And I’m sure that every college in the state has departments that shine. But overall I simply find it inconceivable that the college at UM, which has made such enormous strides in the past 10-20 years and which today boasts by far the strongest faculty in its history, could possibly be ranked so much lower than UF, not to mention behind those other schools.

OK, UM isn’t quite at the rear of the state sweepstakes, as UCF got ranked at 193, and FAU at 240, but still.

The Daily Show explores its love affair with Florida. Part One and Part Two (not decorous at all).

They love us. They really do.

They do love us, don’t they?

A correspondent writes,

I see in your blog from March of this year that you called attention to Florida House member Dennis Baxley’s ridiculous idea to make sure students can “express their views” in the classroom. Unfortunately I live in his district. The good news is that he faces a challenger this year in November, a young democrat who is an Iraqi war veteran but now works at a women’s domestic violence center. His name is James Walker. I am not associated with his campaign, but have been trying to help him and have given him the maximum $500 myself.

Are you interested in doing something about Baxley and legislators who propose crazy ideas like his? I suggest you round up your friends who have an interest in this issue and each give James Walker $50 for his campaign. The only way to temper people with crazy ideas like Baxley is to try to throw them out of office. This is an excellent chance to do so. Baxley has no business serving in our legislature.

Here is a link to James Walker’s website:

P.S. Baxley’s legislation relates directly to religion and his disbelief in the theory evolution. What he really wants is for students to be able to argue in favor of creationism, and against evolution, and not be penalized in any way (i.e. meaning graded down). Baxley is a far right wing religious conservative.