By Jake Scully
My wife and I moved our young family to Palm Coast in 1991 and for about ten years, I probably could not name more than a couple County Commissioners or School Board members.
It was a blissful and apolitical time in the neighborhood!
Alas, things change.
Today it is hard to be unaware of politics, but it is also at times hard to keep the rules and facts straight during election season.
Take, for instance, the upcoming Primary on August 20th.
Did you know that even though Florida is a “Closed Primary” state, all 93,281 registered voters in Flagler County can vote in a Primary race when all the candidates are of the same party affiliation?
This is the case in the race for County Commission between Andy Dance and Fernando Melendez. These candidates are both Republicans and thus all 93,281 of us can, and should, help make this important choice for our community – for our neighbors.
Unfortunately, this is NOT the case in the other two races for County Commission. (See: “The Write-In Fraud“).
Due to last minute entries of two “Write-in” candidates who are not registered Republicans these choices will be made by Primary-voting Republicans only. These races are closed.
Closed Primaries attract a much smaller and more party-centric voter turnout. These neighbors are referred to as “super-voters”.
I think it fair to say it is typically not in the interest of the extreme and the passionate in both of our major political parties to have reasonable and sane voters of all political stripes participating.
Sadly, the result for us is late-arriving candidates who have no interest in campaigning for, much less winning, spots on the Board of County Commissioners.
If you think their appearances were the results of cynical and cheap political tricks to keep 47,755 of us from helping our Republican neighbors choose the best candidates during the Primary on the 20th of August, you, neighbor, would be correct.
Nonetheless, we who are not registered Republicans still have an opportunity to help our neighbors make the best choices for all of us.
Simply go to and change your party affiliation to Republican by July 22 and vote in the Primary. It takes a few minutes, and you can change back as easily after the 20th.
I did it, it did not hurt.
Consider doing the same – it is the neighborly thing to do.
Thanks!
PS – you may notice I am not naming candidates in the two races in question… if you read this far, you are probably a neighbor who will do the research.
Jake Scully is, except for one very hot summer in 2024, a life-long Democrat who served 6 years on the City of Palm Coast Planning Board and is a founding member of the Flagler County Tiger Bay Club.
