Suggestions on how to cast an informed ballot

Orlando business group endorses candidates before it even knows for sure who’s running

Imagine for a moment that I offered you a gift. You could choose between an old sock and a free year’s worth of Netflix.

You’d choose Netflix, right? (That way you could watch the final season of “Ozark,” even though you’ve come to loathe most of the characters, especially Wendy, and can’t imagine what was going through Wyatt’s head when he hooked up with Darlene.)

But what if I offered you a different deal?

You could choose between the sock and Netflix today — or wait a few weeks when I might also offer you a new car.

You’d wait, right? Because what kind of dunderhead would make a choice before you knew what all your options were?

Quite a few, as it turns out. Especially during election years.

Some groups are trying to get ahead of the campaign curve by endorsing candidates before they even know everyone who’s running. The official filing period hasn’t begun; for most races it doesn’t start until June.

But these groups — including BusinessForce, which bills itself as Central Florida’s “voice of business” — want to give you their picks before they know all their options.

Casting aside potential candidates before you even know who they might be seems like premature evacuation.

It also reminds me of Twitter, where people who don’t have all the facts are dying to give you their opinions.

BusinessForce kicked off its endorsements by backing a trio of Republican state legislators, including Sen. Jason Brodeur, whose last election is still being probed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for irregularities involving dark money and a ghost candidate.

BusinessForce also endorsed two incumbents running for the Orange County Commission. Now there are three incumbents running for that board, but BusinessForce — whose board members include the head of the East Orlando Chamber of Commerce — chose not to support the incumbent commissioner who actually represents east Orange County, Maribel Cordero.

Why? Who knows? Andrew Cole, the head of the East Orlando Chamber, didn’t answer questions.

Winter Park Chamber of Commerce CEO Betsy Gardner Eckbert, another BusinessForce board member, did answer questions but said she couldn’t explain why the group has backed some candidates and not others — including the incumbent House rep for her community — because she hadn’t attended recent meetings and wasn’t involved in the decisions.

(Any sway the group’s endorsements might have comes from the names of the board members and their respective organizations, displayed on the group’s website.)

I tried contacting several other BusinessForce members, including a lawyer from Greenberg Traurig and the head of the Kissimmee chamber, to ask why they felt confident endorsing candidates in races before the fields were set. They didn’t respond.

Frankly, I’m not sure why anyone would put stock in endorsements from a group that didn’t have all the facts before making decisions and whose members seem uninterested in defending their decisions or say they weren’t actually involved in making them in the first place.

And that’s really the point of today’s piece — to encourage you to do a little due diligence when considering endorsements this election cycle. (I’m also going to offer a suggestion for what I think is a better way to cast informed votes.)

Todd Wilcox, the business owner who serves as chairman of BusinessForce, said his group didn’t feel it needed to know for sure everyone running in races where candidates had already proved their “pro-business stripes.”

Most were Republican incumbents, but the group also backed a couple of non-incumbent GOP legislative candidates and one high-profile Democrat — Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings.

(The latter is probably because he’s expected to wipe the floor with whomever runs against him in dark-blue Orange County. You might as well back an expected winner.)

Wilcox, a Republican who mounted a shortlived campaign for U.S. Senate a few years ago, didn’t want to get into the specifics of his group’s deliberations but said it felt comfortable with selective early endorsements and stressed it’d offer more down the road.

Wilcox also said his pro-business group had no qualms about endorsing legislators who recently took hasty and retaliatory action against Central Florida’s largest employer, Disney World, saying: “You shouldn’t get involved in social activism.”

Hey, if everybody else in this group — whose members also include representatives from Duke Energy, Clear Channel Outdoor, GrayRobinson and BakerHostetler — feels the same way, then mazel tov.

You should just know how groups like this arrived at their decisions.

Better yet, I’d encourage you to make your own.

Attend a candidate’s forum. Watch a debate. The Orlando Sentinel’s editorial board attempts to interview candidates in every major race — and then puts the video of the interview on our website.

You don’t have to agree with the ed board endorsements. Heck, I think I disagreed with nearly half of them in the last round of municipal elections. But the interviews give voters a chance to see and hear the candidates for themselves.

We’ll probably start conducting them in a few weeks. Some are dull, some are fun, a few are cringy, but most are pretty straightforward.

But one thing the board will do before sending out invitations and making recommendations is know for sure who all the choices are.