Case: Bill Nelson For US Senate v. Detzner

This case is about the vote recount procedures required by Florida law for close elections. On November 15, 2018, a political campaign organization, Bill Nelson for U.S. Senate, filed a complaint in the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit of Florida against the Florida Secretary of State under state law and 42 USC § 1983. The plaintiff sought an injunction to require Florida counties to follow a state rule that required a manual recount of a close election to be undertaken sequentially. Because the margin between the votes for the two candidates was less than 0.5%, state law required an automatic machine-based recount. The plaintiff campaign filed the complaint in a Florida state trial court about two hours prior to the deadline for counties to provide their recount information. The margin remained thin following this machine-based recount and, because it was less than 0.25%, state law required a recount of ballots that had been rejected. This complaint focused in part on how the rejected ballots would be counted.

The plaintiff's complaint sought temporary and preliminary injunctions to require the counties to follow a state rule that required this type of manual recount to be undertaken sequentially, one race at a time starting at the top of the ticket (which would have been this senate race). The votes in two other races during this election also had close margins and were in the process of being recounted at the same time. The plaintiff believed that at least some of the counties intended to conduct simultaneous recounts for all races subject to recounts rather than conducting the recounts sequentially. The plaintiff had concerns with simultaneous recounts because of the way that election officials handle over-voted ballots (e.g., irregular mark for a particular race) and under-voted ballots (e.g., missing a mark for one or more races). The plaintiff alleged that if these ballots were not handled sequentially, on a race-by-race basis, some votes could be double-counted. The plaintiff also sought injunctions to ensure that election observers would be allowed to use writing utensils and electronic devices and to make copies of ballots. In a third count, the plaintiff sought injunctions to ensure that election officials could not require all objections by recount observers to be made in writing and instead to allow such objections to be made orally. The plaintiff relied on state law, the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and the Bush v. Gore holding related to the constitutional requirements for consistency among counties.  

Less than 24 hours after the Nelson campaign filed the complaint in state court, the defendant filed a notice of removal with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida stating that the case arose under the laws of the US and therefore the federal court had jurisdiction.  At the same time, the National Republican Senatorial Committee supporting the political opponent filed an emergency motion to intervene, which Chief Judge Mark E. Walker granted.

The machine recount results released the afternoon of November 15, 2018, eventually confirmed that the Republican candidate had a sufficient number of votes to win the election regardless of how many rejected ballots had been cast in favor of the Democratic candidate, and the plaintiff withdrew its complaint before the end of the day on November 16, 2018.  The federal court closed the matter on the same day, November 16, 2018.