By Scott Maxwell | smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com | Orlando Sentinel
PUBLISHED: August 18, 2026
Every election cycle, millions of Floridians get shut out of state and local elections, denied the chance to cast meaningful votes.
Most Floridians want to change the system. In fact, 57% of us voted to open statewide primaries to all voters a few years ago — so that all voters could choose among all candidates. But our wishes were rebuffed.
The defenders of closed-primaries — the minority share of Floridians — think they have it good. What many don’t realize is that they’re frequently shut out as well.
For instance, the majority of voters in Orange County — both Republicans and non-party-affiliated voters (NPAs) — will never get a chance to see more than one candidate’s name on their ballots in this year’s race for clerk of court.
There are three candidates running in the race — one of whom voters already tossed out of another office after a string of controversies. But because of the whackadoo way Florida’s laws are written, most voters will get their ballots in November and see only one name, meaning they’ll never get a meaningful say.
The same thing happened a few years ago in the race for state attorney when a political operative rigged the race by filing as a write-in candidate, so that most voters in Orange and Osceola counties never got to cast a consequential vote in that contest either.
We’ll talk more about the so-called “write-in loophole” in a moment. But first let’s look at the big picture.
Most Floridians are sick of the closed-primary system where Republicans and Democrats each pick a candidate — which often ends up being the most extreme from each side — and then let the two extremists face off.
In 2020, 57% of Floridians voted to start holding “Top-Two” primaries for races like governor and attorney general where every candidate’s name would appear on every voter’s primary ballot. It wouldn’t matter if there were three Democrats, two Republicans and one member of the Bull-Moose party. Voters would get to select the candidate they like most among all contenders, and the top two vote-getters would then face off in November.
Some other states already run their primaries that way and have seen voter turnout rise. So the idea also made sense to most Floridians. But in Florida, the majority
often loses, thanks to a provision that says state constitutional amendments must get 60% to pass.
I still agree with most of my fellow Floridians that we should have wide-open primaries. In fact, I think they should be that way for all races for several reasons:
- If one party has two good candidates running and the other party has two knuckleheads, no one should be forced to vote for a knucklehead.
- Closed primaries foster extremism. When candidates know they only have to appeal to one party, they often run as far left or right as possible. This leads to a legislature and Congress full of people at the furthest ends of the political spectrum — and often to general dysfunction.
- Closed primaries force unaffiliated taxpayers to pay for elections in which they can’t vote. Party bosses like to control the process. But if they want to exclude others from their primaries, they should use their own darn money to stage them.
- Open primaries are the most democratic. If you want to serve in an office where you’ll represent all people, you should face all people at the ballot box.
If you still support open primaries, as most Floridians did back in 2020, contact your legislator (www.leg.state.fl.us) and ask them to put top-two primaries back on the ballot, ideally for all races.
But even if this state keeps closed primaries, lawmakers should close what’s known as the “write-in loophole,” a wacky provision that routinely shuts out voters of all
stripes. The Sentinel spotlighted this mess in Sunday’s paper, focusing on this year’s battle for clerk of court.
In that race, two Democrats faced off. One is an experienced administrator in the office, Roberta Walton Johnson. The other is Rick Singh, who spent much of his previous tenure as property appraiser steeped in controversy until voters drubbed him out of office.
Normally, if the only candidates running are from the same party, everyone gets to vote. That is, of course, the way it should be. Everyone should have a say in who represents them.
But Florida has a provision that says, if a write-in candidate also files to run, the primary is closed. And in this case, one did.
So what does that mean in this race? Most Orange County voters — more than half-a-million Republicans and NPAs — are shut out. Their only choice will come in November when they will see the name of the Democratic victor and a blank line where the write-in candidate’s name could theoretically go, but rarely actually does since write-ins virtually never win.
This allows for all sorts of chicanery. Candidates who are scared of facing all voters can recruit a stooge to run as a write-in, so they’ll only have to appeal to party faithful. The Sentinel and other newspapers have caught political operatives recruiting members of their own family to run as write-ins to try to rig races in the past.
Other times, write-in candidates just want to run without putting in the work or money to get their names on the ballot. Regardless of the reason, there should never be a race where any voter sees only one name when more than one real candidate was running.
State lawmakers could fix this problem by passing a law to close the write-in loophole and prevent write-in candidates from closing primaries. Virtually every normal person who understands the issue supports that idea.
Unfortunately, many politicians and party bosses are not normal people. They like controlling the process and allowing candidates to rig the system. They also deeply fear independent-minded voters, particularly NPA’s whose ranks are growing. (In Orange County, NPA’s actually outnumber Republicans.)
So the party bosses and loyalists cling to a system that forces voters to join their ranks if they want to have a meaningful vote and which allows the write-in rigging to continue. And there’s nothing democratic about that.