A group of concerned citizens has a question for Sarasota County voters: How would you like your local elections — partisan or nonpartisan? The group, Open Our Elections, is launching a petition drive aimed at amending the Sarasota County Charter to provide for nonpartisan elections for all elected county offices, including the County Commission. Open Our Elections’ goal is to gather nearly 14,000 signatures of registered county voters, enough to have the question put to voters in a special election and, if approved, have a nonpartisan provision in place for the November 2014 general election.
To anyone who has witnessed the bitter and sometimes petty partisanship in local, state and national politics, the nonpartisan option might seem like a no-brainer.
But residents eligible to sign the petition should consider the question carefully. Partisanship isn’t always a bad thing, and nonpartisanship isn’t necessarily a panacea.
What spurred the groups’s petition drive is a particularly petty display of partisanship that has become a staple of Florida politics: the phony write-in candidacy.
Full Article: Editorial: A nonpartisan-election option | HeraldTribune.com.