Libertarians and Democrats take Center Stage in Florida Election Reform

July 19th 2005

Election Reform efforts by an unusual coalition of Libertarians, Democrats and community groups is the number one GOOGLE story on election reform in Florida, outdoing the Governor's own reform bill.

"Our phone is constantly busy. People are sick of the situation and welcome imaginative action," said Michael Gilson-De Lemos, a Libertarian Party (LP) movement founder who is also the local LP chair. "We've run out of copies of our report and people are downloading them off several websites."

The report calls for improvements and promises joint action by the coalition, and documented many problems now discussed widely.

Gilson-De Lemos attributes some of the interest in a coalition to seminars based on the evolving Libertarian program tool at http://www.libertarian-program.org. Using them, he held a series of seminars and "one thing led to another."

Gilson-De Lemos, who was in a previous Libertarian Today story as a mastermind behind "Operation Full Slate", which got more votes for Libertarians in Florida proportionally than any other Libertarian effort of the kind in history, was unstinting in praised of the coalition members.

Singling out the local Democratic Vice-chair, Arlin Briley, and other members who organized community forums was where the coalition learned about local voter dissatisfaction.  He said they had set up a tool for public complaints and suggestions at their website, http://www.ERCPinellas.org.

Florida has several dozen libertarians in local government. The coalition's activities are attracting international attention, including stories as far as Europe.

By Julie Chorgo
Julie is Editor of Florida Liberty