(AP) — Dozens of sham candidates, some of them living hundreds of miles away from the legislative seats they are seeking, are using a Florida election law loophole to deny roughly 1.6 million voters a chance to participate in upcoming legislative elections. Voters in 1998 overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that says primary elections are supposed to be open to all voters if there are only candidates from one party running for the seat. Even though write-in candidates have never won an election, state courts regard them as legitimate candidates. The newspaper found examples of write-in candidates closing both Democratic and Republican primaries. "People don't know about it until they are disenfranchised," Dave Aronberg, the Palm Beach County state attorney who tried as a Democratic state senator to close the loophole, told the Times.