Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
State, liberal groups declare victory in settlement
With both sides claiming victory, a federal judge on Monday signed off on a settlement reached by the state and left-leaning groups over Florida’s voteby-mail procedures.
The agreement, which was announced Sunday before a two-week trial was slated to kick off Monday morning, settled nearly all of the issues in lawsuits filed by Priorities USA, Dream Defenders and other plaintiffs seeking to make changes that would help expand voting by mail.
Arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic will result in a record number of Floridians opting to cast ballots from home to reduce the possibility of being infected with the highly contagious coronavirus, the plaintiffs sought to extend a deadline for mail-in ballots to be returned and wanted free postage for absentee ballots. They also challenged a provision in Florida law restricting paid workers from collecting mail-in ballots.
But on Sunday, lawyers for the plaintiffs and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration notified the court that they had reached a settlement. During a brief but emotional hearing Monday morning, Mohammad Jazil, a private attorney who often represents the DeSantis administration in elections-related lawsuits, choked back tears when describing the impact of the agreement.
The settlement is a victory for all Floridians, Jazil told U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle.
“The victors include the black teen in Overtown Miami, who will be voting for the first time, the hurricane refugee from Puerto Rico who’s now casting a vote in Kissimmee, the rural voters, a single mom, the dad who works two jobs” and first-generation college students, Jazil said.
“These victors are those who sometimes need a hand in exercising the franchise,” Jazil added, struggling to speak. “These people are to be applauded. This agreement will help these Floridians, and many others like them.”
Jazil’s comments to the judge came less than 24 hours after the Republican Party of Florida, which intervened in the case, issued a statement gloating over the settlement.
“After the Republicans defeated the Democrataligned organizations’ attempt at a preliminary injunction last month, the organizations decided to settle the case in order to avoid an even worse loss at trial,” state Republican Chairman Joe Gruters said in a Sunday news release.
The agreement requires Secretary of State Laurel Lee to “educate” and “encourage” county supervisors of elections about a variety of vote-by-mail procedures that were at the heart of the case, which was a consolidation of lawsuits.
For example, the state’s top elections official will be required to educate supervisors about pre-paid postage for mail-in ballots.
The settlement also will encourage local elections officials “to maximize the use of drop boxes for voteby-mail ballots” and to inform voters about the availability of the ballot drop-off sites.
Plaintiffs in the case argued that Florida needed to expand its vote-by-mail procedures because of COVID-19, which disrupted the state’s presidential primary election in March and is expected to cause even more issues in the Aug. 18 primary elections and the Nov. 3 general election.
The settlement agreement, however, cited emergency orders issued by DeSantis that give county officials extra time to canvas vote-by-mail ballots and to conduct what are known as “logic and accuracy” tests before early voting begins.
The agreement encourages supervisors “to use the maximum number of early voting days available to them so … they can avail themselves of additional canvassing days and maximize the availability of mandatory drop boxes for vote-by-mail ballots.”
And the settlement encourages supervisors to use their websites “and other platforms” to make voteby-mail request forms and ballots available in Spanish.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers stressed the significance of the voter-education provisions in the settlement.
“This is a victory for Florida voters. We were very happy to have the state engage with us to develop what we consider some very common-sense efforts to expand access to voteby-mail and early voting,” Stuart Naifeh, an attorney for some plaintiffs, told reporters during an online news conference before the hearing.