Special elections and another reason why it may be time for a constitutional convention

I wrote about this briefly before, but once again, due to the death of Senator Vaughn, the city of Dover has had another special election to fill an interim opening in an elected legislative position opening. Rep. Ennis (D) defeats Joanne Christian (R) by a nearly 2:1 margin, in what is reported as an impressive turnout of 19.6 percent. So now, there is an opening in the House, and I'm sure there will be another special election to fill that also.

To me, this whole "special election" process is nonsensical. Not to mention costly, given the timing of when this reelection process will be repeated. I think the time has come to amend the Delaware constitution to allow for the governor, by a heads up vote of the chamber that has the opening, to appoint the interim position, and that way, it remains open and any cries of lameduckedness become muted. The exact details can be worked out among the two chambers and let the people decide whether they want one election every two/four years or these "mini-elections" every few months.

Obviously if the Governor is a Republican, he would appoint a Republican to the spot, and vice versa. Nevertheless, the amendment could provide for the spot to go to the party of whose spot the open position was. Let the next general election decide whether that specially appointed person did a good job or not. The result of having these special elections, to me, simply inundate the public with misconceptions about the whole democratic process. And, if the 19.6% turnout is any indication, the current process really isn't that democratic anyway.

Tags: amending the delaware constitution, delaware special election problems