Bill Nelson’s campaign sues Florida secretary of state
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson’s re-election campaign has filed a lawsuit against Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner over vote-by-mail ballots and the process used to validate them.
Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, the lead recount lawyer for Nelson, decried the signature matching process that is used to validate provisional ballots, arguing that it leaves the decision to the “untrained opinions” of poll workers to determine “whether signatures match.” He said there was a “complete lack of uniformity” in how those signatures were judged.
“This serves as an outright disenfranchisement and burden on the right to vote,” Elias told reporters on a call Friday.
The lawsuit comes amid a bitter fight between Republicans and Democrats in the state over multiple electoral contests, including Nelson’s race for re-election and the gubernatorial contest between Democrat Andrew Gillum and Republican Ron DeSantis. The Republican candidates’ leads in both contests are narrowing as votes continue to be counted.
Democrats believe there are enough votes out to tip the Senate race towards Nelson, but are less confident in Gillum’s race, where the divide is around 37,000 votes in DeSantis’ favor.
