Posted on 11/15/2018 7:11:58 AM PST by Beautiful_Gracious_Skies
Overnight ruling on 1 of 7 lawsuits over Florida's contentious election.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - In one of seven election-related lawsuits pending, a federal judge has ruled that the state must give voters whose mismatched signatures disqualified their provisional and mail-in ballots until 5 p.m. Saturday at 5 p.m. to correct those signature problems -- extending the deadline by two days.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker comes in a suit brought by U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson's campaign and Democratic Party officials, who are looking to the courts to help them find votes to narrow the margin in the race with Republican challenger Gov. Rick Scott.
The order affects approximately 5,000 voters who sent in ballots by mail or were forced to sign provisional ballots, but whose signatures did not match those on file with the state.[snip]
“I’m being asked to rewrite the election code of the state of Florida, one piece at a time,” Walker groused during a five-hour hearing....[snip]
The Nelson-Scott contest is almost certain to fall within a 0.25 percent margin that will require a subsequent manual recount, as is the secretary of agriculture contest between Matt Caldwell and Nikki Fried.
According to Maria Matthews, director of the state Division of Elections, ..... The final number of rejected ballots could be around 5,000, Walker estimated.
... Nelson trails Republican Gov. Rick Scott by about 12,500 votes, down from Scott’s 56,000-vote lead on election night.
Matthews said it appeared Nelson’s team wanted “ballots to be counted without verifying the signature of the voter,”...
Mohammad Jazil is an attorney representing Secretary of State Ken Detzner....Walker frequently took Republican lawyers to task during the hearing.
----> Nelson’s lawyer, Uzoma Nkwonta, argued that the state should delay elect ion deadlines to give voters whose ballots were scrapped an opportunity to fix them. ...
“There’s zero reason why this election ... needs to occur on Nov. 20,” Nkwonta argued, saying that to comply with the statutory deadlines would “disenfranchise thousands of voters.”
Nkwonta told Walker that voters need more than three days to fix their ballots. “At least a couple of weeks from now, if not more, given the Thanksgiving holiday,” Nkwonta said...<-----
But Walker questioned how involved the court should get in the elections process, noting that it was “almost laughable” that the parties in the courtroom were taking opposite stances from their positions in an Arizona recount in which Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema emerged the victor after a recount.
“Isn’t it just fundamentally a bad idea to have a federal judge essentially being asked to rewrite the entire election code as ballots are being counted?” Walker asked. “This just seems like a really bad way to do this.”...[snip]
But Jazil insisted that the state’s deadlines have to stick, in part because of a Jan. 8 date when the new governor and Cabinet members will be sworn in.
If the executive branch elections aren’t settled by then, the Legislature chooses the governor and Cabinet members, Jazil argued.
“I cannot think of anything greater that would undermine … people’s faith in our democracy” than to have the state officials selected by the Legislature, Jazil said.
“I think there are a great many things that are undermining people’s faith in our democracy,” Walker retorted....
“I don’t understand why that’s going to completely bring Florida to its knees,” he said.
Walker, who lectured the lawyers throughout the lengthy hearing, ripped into Deputy Attorney General Jordan Pratt for suggesting the federal judge didn’t have the authority to strike down the state law.
If that was the case, an angry Walker said, Florida schools would still be segregated.
Walker saved some of his venom for Thomas Dupree, a lawyer representing the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who agreed with the judge that the legal challenge puts Walker in an “extremely difficult position of having to sort out winners and losers” in the election.
--->But Walker lashed out at Dupree, who argued that Nelson and the Democrats had waited too long to file their lawsuit. That would mean “every candidate who’s going to run in 2020 needs to run to the courthouse now and dissect the statute,” Walker said. “Every judge in the country would be, ‘Bye-bye. You’ve got no standing,’ ” Walker said.
Walker also appeared to reject Jazil’s argument that voting by mail is a “convenience” granted to voters but is not constitutionally required.
“Implicit in all this is, ‘get off your lazy butt and go vote in a polling place,’ ” Walker said. But Jazil said the state was trying to ensure that votes are cast by people “who are who they say they are” while accommodating voters by allowing them to vote by mail. “We’re being asked to throw a wrench into a sequential, statutory process,” Jazil said.
But Walker balked again. “I really don’t understand how that’s going to destroy the system and bring it to its knees,” he said.
This Obama judge actually believes it is his job to rewrite the Florida Election Statutes.
Judge Walker argues that since a candidate (D) has no standing prior to an election and can't dilute the laws legislatively in their favor, so he will fix it for them, right now, retroactively.
Walker: "every candidate who’s going to run in 2020 needs to run to the courthouse now and dissect the statute,” Walker said. “Every judge in the country would be, ‘Bye-bye. You’ve got no standing,’
While at the same time the Nelson Campaign is SUING THE BAY COUNTY SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS TO DISALLOW BALLOTS THAT WERE EMAILED. BAY COUNTY WAS GROUND ZERO FRO HURRICANE MICHAEL. WHAT AN ASSHOLE!................
Scott is appealing the ruling.
“We are immediately appealing this baseless decision and we are confident we will prevail in the Eleventh Circuit,” Scott spokeswoman Lauren Schenone said in a released statement. “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.”"
“Walker frequently took Republican lawyers to task during the hearing”
I am the law so I am giving the cheaters 2 days to find a copy of the signature and forge it properly. Not that it matter because these votes are already in with the rest of them.
Scott and DeSantis will prevail.
Yep. Obama’s judges are there to do his bidding long after he is no longer President.
“filed a notice of appeal to the 11th Circuit.”
Didn’t the 11th strike down Trumps travel ban?
“Walker, who lectured the lawyers throughout the lengthy hearing, ripped into Deputy Attorney General Jordan Pratt for suggesting the federal judge didn’t have the authority to strike down the state law.
If that was the case, an angry Walker said, Florida schools would still be segregated.”
Does anyone else see a hitch in this comparison? I do, and it makes me concerned that Walker not only made it through law school but is a judge with so much power.
Signatures do change. But extending the deadline is wrong. One solution would be for people to send updates of their signature (notarized) to the SOE to be filed with the state.
I can access it, but it’s the Tallahassee Democrat, a USA Today paper, not allowed on FR....................
Floridians need to get off their butts and vote (with few exceptions.)
Mail in votes are ripe for fraud.
Does the article list the judge?
Why two days? Why not give them until next June....
Only judge mentioned is U.S. Chief Judge Mark Walker, an OBAMA APPOINTEE....................
——> Nelson’s lawyer, Uzoma Nkwonta, argued that the state should delay until after Thanksgiving.
It just never ends does it?
2019?
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