Florida Primary Do-Over - Illegal?

The Miami Herald suggests that a do-over for the Florida Democratic primary is all but dead in the water. Most interesting, though, was the notion that a mail-in ballot would actually be illegal in Florida.

Verifying the signatures and identities of people who vote by mail -- either through a conventional absentee ballot or in the Democrats' proposed statewide mailed election -- is considered a key bulwark against electoral fraud.

''There's no authority under Florida law that would allow county supervisors of election or the state to verify signatures in an election of a state party,'' said Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for Florida's secretary of state and Division of Elections.

...

"The Department of State cannot share those signatures -- they are not public record," Ivey said. "We cannot do anything, and even the local supervisors couldn't be able to verify anything unless there was a new statute."

At the same time, the estimated cost for such a venture has quadrupled, now at $12 million.

Mark Schmitt at The American Prospect suggests that the best case scenario for Clinton is actually for the situation to drag on without resolution.

Contrary to the gullible media's belief that "time" is a "powerful ally" on Clinton's side, in fact, Clinton's only ally is uncertainty. The minute it becomes clear what will happen with Michigan and Florida -- re-vote them, refuse to seat them, or split them 50-50 or with half-votes, as some have proposed -- is the minute that Clinton's last "path to the nomination" closes. The only way to keep spin alive is to keep uncertainty alive -- maybe there will be a revote, maybe they'll seat the illegal Michigan/Florida delegations, maybe, maybe, maybe. In the fog of uncertainty, Penn can claim that there is a path to the nomination, but under any possible actual resolution of the uncertainty, there is not.

In the meantime, Ramussen Reports released the results of a new Ohio poll that shows McCain besting either Democratic candidate.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Ohio shows John McCain leading both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama by identical 46% to 40% margins. In the last poll conducted before the hard fought Democratic Primary, McCain had a statistically insignificant one-point lead over Obama and a three-point edge over Clinton.

The once were two cats of Kilkenny...