‘Florida’s ballot order statute ensures one party’s candidates receive that advantage in every race…’
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) Florida Democrats are furious that an election law they created is giving the GOP an election advantage in the nation’s largest swing state—and they want the law struck down now that it no longer benefits them.
Thanks to an Obama-appointed federal judge, they almost succeeded.
Until the election of Gov. Jeb Bush 20 years ago, there had only been two Republican governors of Florida since Reconstruction.
To ensure political dominance, Democrats passed favorable election laws, including a measure in 1951 that guaranteed the governor’s political party would receive top billing on all statewide election ballots.
Democrats benefited for half a century, but lawyers from the notorious left-wing law firm Perkins Coie are crying foul now that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is in office.
Appearing first on Florida ballots could provide a 5-point election advantage in November 2020, an expert witness testified during a federal lawsuit last year.
The firm’s attorneys, including prominent “election-stealing” lawyer Marc Elias, have been active in an array of legal challenges to help secure Democratic majorities.
Elias, who represented former Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson‘s recount battle in his razor-thin 2018 loss in Florida to current GOP Sen. Rick Scott, also has a long history of finding mysterious bags of uncounted ballots to help overturn Republicans’ election victories.
As soon as Democrats sent their best Election stealing lawyer, Marc Elias, to Broward County they miraculously started finding Democrat votes. Don’t worry, Florida – I am sending much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018
At first, it appeared Elias might have an opportunity to vindicate the rare defeat with his latest Florida case.
Chief Judge Mark Walker of the Northern District of Florida, an Obama-appointed judge, reacted strongly to the GOP’s so-called “primacy effect” advantage and ruled the law unconstitutional.
“The implication is obvious,” wrote Walker. “Florida’s ballot order statute ensures one party’s candidates receive that advantage in every race, all down the ballot, in every election.”
But that ruling was overturned this week by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, where a panel of judges said the array of Democratic political organizations suing the state never proved they were harmed by the law. In other words, they wanted it struck down simply because it helped Republicans.
The panel further embarrassed the plaintiffs for suing the wrong parties. Instead of filing lawsuits against Florida’s independent local supervisors of elections, they sued the DeSantis-appointed secretary of state, who has no direct authority over local election supervisors in Florida’s decentralized election system.
The ruling is one of the most significant decisions to come from a series of election-related lawsuits filed over the last two years by Democrats.
Among the many other activist causes that Elias has pursued through courts are the “sue-till-blue” gerrymandering campaigns in several states, efforts to conceal left-wing dark-money donors and the recent push for an all-mail-in general election that would lend itself to widespread ballot fraud.