The order that state lawmakers redraw two Florida congressional districts ruled invalid because they were created to favor Republicans is wreaking havoc on the upcoming elections.Florida's Fifth Dictrict, represented by Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown is one that will be reconfigured. It snakes from Jacksonville down to Orlando.
Duval County Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland says he met with a number of other elections supervisors Tuesday afternoon to go over the problem and come up with possible solutions.
One thing they agreed on, he says, is that there won’t be enough time between when the new districts are approved and when elections are held this fall.
“For those districts that would be impacted and have new lines, they would have a new qualifying period," Holland said. "That would allow both candidates who didn’t qualify before as well as the existing candidates to qualify to run in those new districts. And so it will start a new election cycle for those impacted congressional districts.”
Holland says one option is to keep the existing districts for the upcoming elections and switch to the new ones in 2016. He says they’ll give their ideas to the judge August 15, the same day lawmakers are required to submit their newly redrawn congressional map.
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