Judge Issues Florida Recount Orders That Have The GOP Clutching Pearls

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As the Florida recount for the midterm elections continues, Republicans have demanded an end since their candidates are ahead. However, every vote must be counted for the elections to be fair.

Screenshot-at-Nov-15-09-47-57 Judge Issues Florida Recount Orders That Have The GOP Clutching Pearls Election 2018 Featured Politics Top Stories

Now, a federal judge has ruled that voters whose mail-in and provisional ballots were rejected over issues with their signatures must be allowed two days to correct them. His ruling listed the process for challenging a play in a professional football game, which is long and detailed, and was incredulous that the voting process would be any less fair since it involves “the precious and fundamental right to vote.”

‘The precise issue in this case is whether Florida’s law that allows county election officials to reject voter-by-mail and provisional ballots for mismatched signatures – with no standards, an illusory process to cure, and no process to challenge the rejection – passes constitutional muster. The answer is simple. It does not.’

Currently, the Senate race has GOP Governor Rick Scott ahead of Democrat Bill Nelson by just over 12,000 votes and the governor’s race has Republican Ron DeSantis just over 32,000 votes ahead of Democrat Andrew Gillum. Approximately 5,000 votes were rejected due to mismatched signatures with issues like missing hyphens, middle initials left out, or missing accent marks.

The additional ballots are not expected to change the results of the election; however, they will bode well for future elections in ensuring every vote is counted. After votes were rejected in both Florida and Georgia for numerous arbitrary reasons, Republicans are the only ones who have benefitted.

Featured image via Flickr by Vaguely Artistic under a Creative Commons license