A lawsuit requesting the Monroe County Elections Office and its supervisor to count votes for Islamorada’s seat 4 didn’t get an emergency hearing from a judge last week. As a result, mail ballots were sent out to village voters with a notice announcing the death of a candidate, which resulted in an unopposed race.
Filed by Islamorada resident Eric Carlson on Sept. 22, the lawsuit against R. Joyce Griffin, county elections supervisor, Florida Division of Elections and Laurel Lee, Florida secretary of state, requested an emergency hearing while seeking to prohibit “unauthorized election interference within the municipal boundaries of Islamorada.” Vice Mayor Ken Davis qualified before the August deadline to appear on the ballot in the race for seat 4 against Henry Rosenthal, who also qualified to run. With Davis’ passing on Sept. 12 from heart failure and a massive stroke, Griffin told the Weekly that votes cast in the race would not be counted.
Mail-in ballots began to go out on Sept. 24, but those set for delivery to village residents were held a day due to the lawsuit. Griffin and Bob Shillinger, county attorney who’s representing the elections office in the case, filed a notice of intention to send out vote-by-mail ballots by 4 p.m. on Sept. 25, absent an order to the contrary by the court. Communication from the judicial court to Shillinger stated that Circuit Judge Tim Koenig reviewed the pleadings and determined that an emergency hearing wasn’t necessary.
Despite Davis’ passing, Carlson’s lawsuit says that neither death, incapacity nor disqualification of a candidate are referenced in Florida statute as instances resulting in creating an unopposed candidate. The lawsuit seeks to prohibit Griffin from mailing, delivering or posting online notices regarding the seat 4 race. It also requests that she count all votes cast.
Carlson told the Weekly last week that Griffin is overstepping in discounting the election by indicating that she wouldn’t count the votes, leading to an automatic win for Rosenthal. Carlson and attorney Robert K. Miller requested an emergency hearing prior to the mailing of ballots on Sept. 24.
“If you have a supervisor of elections who starts adjusting ballots for whatever reason, it’s a slippery slope,” Carlson said. “This will give people options. If they want to vote for the man, they certainly should be allowed to.”
Carlson ran against Davis in the 2018 election. Davis ultimately won to take the seat. Carlson acknowledged his support for Davis in his run for a second term in the 2020 election.
A 12-page response by Shillinger to the lawsuit asks the court to dismiss the matter. Had the village charter complied with Florida statute by having a provision that spelled out the process for addressing the circumstance at hand, the response states there would be no controversy.
“Unfortunately, the village charter is silent on this point,” the response states. “In the absence of direction provided by clear language in the charter, the supervisor has turned to Florida law and guidance from the Division of Elections.”
The response alludes to a 1953 Florida Supreme Court ruling that “when votes are cast for a person known by the voters to be deceased, they shall be treated as void and thrown away and are not to be counted in determining the result of the election.”
The case is pending and awaiting a hearing date.
