A federal judge ruled Thursday that Florida election officials must give voters until Nov. 17 to correct mismatched signatures on thousands of ballots discarded under the state’s “signature match” law.
District Judge Mark E. Walker ordered Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner to inform local election officials that the law “has been applied unconstitutionally” and they must provide voters the extra time, which expires Saturday at 5 p.m.
The ruling comes as the state conducts a machine recount of all 8.2 million ballots cast, which includes undecided races for Senate and governor.
Sen. Bill Nelson, the Democratic incumbent, sued to include all the ballots tossed out under the signature match law. He has retained Marc Elias, who specializes in helping Democrats win election recounts. Nelson is trailing his Republican opponent, Gov. Rick Scott, by about 12,500 votes.
Nelson’s legal team celebrated the ruling, one of many they hope will help produce enough ballots to push Nelson into the lead, which some predict will be impossible.
“Today’s decision is a victory for the people of Florida and for the Nelson campaign as we pursue our goal of making sure every legal ballot is counted,” Elias said in a statement Thursday morning. “The court’s ruling impacts thousands of ballots, and that number will likely increase as larger counties like Broward add their ballots to the total pool which can be cured. We are taking several steps to ensure the rights of every Floridian are protected, and this is one major step forward.”
It’s not clear how many provisional and mail-in ballots were tossed out due to mismatched signatures. The law requires the signatures on ballots to match those on voter registration forms.
According to Walker, 45 of the state’s 67 counties rejected a total of 4,000 signatures for mismatched ballots.
That’s not enough to put Nelson ahead of Scott but more tossed ballots could end up being included from the remaining counties.
Scott’s legal team announced in a statement Thursday they are appealing Walker’s ruling.
“Let’s be clear — Bill Nelson’s high-priced Washington lawyers went to court to argue against a process that they previously argued for. It’s worth noting that Marc Elias is currently making the exact opposite argument in a similar case in Arizona,” Scott campaign spokeswoman Lauren Schenone said. “This also follows recent reports of the Democratic party encouraging and instructing voters to try to vote days after the legal deadline. Another day, another chance for Marc Elias to rack up massive legal fees regardless of the blatant hypocrisy or the damage this will do to Bill Nelson’s legacy.”
Nelson and his legal team argue that tossing out the ballots upon the non-expert judgment of signatures by election officials is unconstitutional.
The machine recount deadline is Thursday and if the tally for the Senate race shows Scott and Nelson apart by a difference below .25 percent, a manual recount is required under state law.
