Judge: Change handling of mail-in-ballots

In a ruling that could make it easier for groups to challenge potentially ineligible absentee ballots, a Broward circuit judge has ordered Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes to change the way her office handles those mailed-in votes.

The Republican Party of Florida had sought the ruling, saying the procedure the elections office follows has given outside groups little opportunity to object to mailin ballots they find questionable.

Judge Raag Singhal said Florida law was clear on the subject: The ballots should not be opened until the county’s three-member canvassing board had determined the validity of the ballots.

Up until the judge’s order, the elections office said it had received permission from the canvassing board to open envelopes if it had determined that a voter’s signature matched the signature on file and that the voter had not died. This only required the presence of one canvassing board member, usually Snipes. For deceased voters, the envelopes would be held for the canvassing board to decide if the vote was cast before the person died.

The canvassing board currently is made up of Snipes, Chief Judge Jack Tuter and retired Deputy County Attorney Norman Ostrau, who is replacing Mayor Beam Furr because Furr is up for reelection on the Aug. 28 ballot.

The office had received more than 41,000 mailed-in ballots by early Monday, according to state election officials.

Attorney Burnadette NorrisWeeks, who represents the elections office, asked for a rehearing Monday on Singhal’s ruling, which was issued Friday evening. She said a hearing is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday.

The supervisor’s office had planned to start opening the mailed-in envelopes Monday but did not because of the judge’s ruling, Snipes said. Once the envelopes are open, the ballots are separated from them, making it impossible to link a ballot to an individual voter.

Snipes said she’s waiting for further clarification from the judge, so her office doesn’t do anything improper, but she maintained her office has procedures in place for ballots to be challenged.

“There’s an opportunity every single day to challenge the process,” Snipes said. The mailed-in ballot envelopes are available for inspection before they are opened for a half-hour each morning during the 15 days prior to an election.

Also, if a signature doesn’t match the one on file, the voter is sent an affidavit for them to sign verifying that they mailed in the ballot, Snipes said.

The Republican Party said Snipes’ practice didn’t follow Florida law and the half-hour inspections weren’t adequate opportunity to challenge any mailed-in ballots.

It’s not the first time this year that Singhal has ruled against Snipes. In a separate case in May, Singhal said she had broken state and federal law by illegally destroying the paper ballots in the 2016 Congressional race between U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Nova Southeastern University law professor Tim Canova.

The elections office is appealing that ruling.

Norris-Weeks called the rulings the work of a “politically active judge.” She earlier sought to have Singhal recused from the absentee ballot case because the judge had been a member of the Republican Executive Committee, but that request was denied.

“He had no business staying on this case,” she said in written comments Monday.

Singhal’s ruling also said Snipes “has even admitted to misunderstanding the meaning of the word ‘canvass,’ ” which Norris-Weeks disputed. What the elections office was unsure of was the Republican Party’s meaning of canvass based on what was written in its complaint, she said.