Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Losing candidate drops lawsuit challenging Fort Lauderdale mayor’s race
Failed mayoral candidate Ken Cooper has decided to walk away from the lawsuit he filed contesting the results of the Nov. 3 race.
Cooper, 68, lost the Fort Lauderdale mayor’s race to incumbent Dean Trantalis, 67, by 12,820 votes.
Cooper’s lawsuit demanded that he be named mayor and that all 43,803 mail-in ballots cast in the election be thrown out.
The suit, filed in Broward Circuit Court on Nov. 23, named Trantalis as a defendant along with Peter Antonacci, Broward’s supervisor of elections at the time of the election; Michael Udine, a county commissioner who served as chair of the Broward County Canvassing Board; and Daniel Kanner, a member of the Canvassing Board.
Cooper’s lawsuit mentioned 106 mail-in ballots that were allegedly invalid, but argued the whole lot should be tossed.
On Sunday, Trantalis said Cooper’s lawsuit had no merit.
As part of the agreement, each party has agreed to pay their own attorneys’ fees. Trantalis said he agreed to that to avoid protracted litigation
that could have cost the city thousands of dollars.
“We needed to put the election behind us,” Trantalis said. “We could have made a claim for attorneys’ fees. But in order to settle the case, we decided to absorb our own costs.”
Cooper said filing the lawsuit only cost him $400.
Some speculate he filed the case simply to make headlines — a claim he denies.
“He thought he could ride the Trump hysteria on the claim of voter fraud and mishandling of the election, which was all so untrue,” Trantalis said. “I think he was just trying to continue his presence in the media and bootstrap his election to the hysteria over a fraudulent election. And as time passed, he realized that was getting Trump nowhere and getting him nowhere.”
Cooper says he will ”probably” run for political office again but declined to say which race he might enter or when.
Cooper ran unsuccessfully for three seats in the mid-1990s — twice for Congress and once for a state House seat.