Democrats put Florida election law to the test

TALLAHASSEE – Democrats are trying to convince a federal judge this week to get rid of a 70-year-old law guaranteeing that President Donald Trump's name will top the 2020 ballot list in any of the largest states of the country's battlefield.

Denying Republicans the perceived advantage of "position bias", as some call it, in the polling booth is part of the more general Democrats' strategy to build preemptively a legal bulwark of 2020 in Florida, who defended in favor of Trump in 2016 and remains firmly in place Republicans followed one another after voters last year elected Trump's representative, the ex-president -representative Ron DeSantis as governor.

History continues below

And the legal challenge at Tallahassee's US District Court on Monday, filed by the DNC and other political groups, is just one of many challenges to Florida's election laws by 2020 Already, lawsuits are pending laws relating to early voting on university campuses, constitutional amendment giving the right to vote to criminals and ballots in Spanish.

The long series of election-related litigation is a reminder that "stakes are high" in 2020, says Senator Gary Farmer, Democrat and Lawyer for South Florida, who says "the sad reality is that the controlling party continues to embrace laws that pose more obstacles and make it more difficult for people to vote, "said Farmer.

Florida's 29 electoral votes are critical to Trump's re-election strategy; he beat Hillary Clinton closely by 113,000 votes. Last year, three statewide elections – including the Governor's and the US Senate races – resulted in a recount. These close elections have given new eyes to a state known for the infamous recount of the 2000 presidential elections, in which George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in the state by 537 votes, winning the presidency.

Republicans are opposed to Democratic criticism that they have drafted new laws on early voting and the right to vote in criminal matters to give themselves an advantage in 2020. But over the next few months, the arguments of the two parties will be examined in a federal court located two blocks north. from the Capitol.

The case presented to the court on Monday may be the most unusual, as US District Court Judge Mark Walker holds a four-day trial, without a jury, for a quirk in state law that imposes the name of the first name on the ballot.

The 1951 law, passed when Democrats controlled the Legislative Assembly and the Governor's Palace, stipulates that candidates belonging to the same party as the governor must appear first on the ballot.

Now on the defensive in Florida, the Democrats will present a host of experts who will argue that the enumeration of Republican candidates helps them in the first place in a state where elections are decided at the reduced margin.

Republicans, they say, are feeling the pinch of "position bias", which tilts the final result in tight races and gives the GOP an unfair and unconstitutional advantage. The methods used to determine the order of candidates on the ballots differ from state to state.

The complaint is against the head of state elections, but the National Republican Committee and the Association of Republican Governors have mobilized to defend the law.

In their statements, Republican lawyers said the Democrats were simply upset by the fact that they were constantly losing elections in Florida – and that the lawsuit was based on the "imperfect" postulate that the law benefits the party. GOP.

"The law does not favor anyone or anything," lawyer Jason Torchinsky wrote. "Instead, the statute simply organizes votes. It is the electors, not the Republicans, not the Democrats, who determine the winner of the governors' election – and then – by the vote of their governor – which appears first on the ballot. The mere fact that electors can choose to vote for the first candidate on the list does not change the fact that the elector has always made a valid choice. "

State officials in court claim that Democrats can not prove that this approach has affected the outcome of an election, and that other court trials have concluded that it was not of a "constitutional problem". They also argue that Florida has a legitimate character. interest in ensuring that ballots are consistent across the state.

The attorneys for Secretary of State Laurel Lee and Republicans also point out that Democratic groups have not suggested a specific solution to the problem.

Democrat lawyers, including well-known election lawyer Marc Elias – who is the general advocate for the Californian Senator Kamala Harris' presidential campaign – have suggested that rotating names by county or constituency could allow for an election. more equitable. Lawyers say state officials have not been able to refute studies that point to the unexpected gain of first person registration.

"This outdated and undemocratic rule makes no sense. If this law is upheld, in 2020, Republican candidates will appear first on every ballot for every race in the state of Florida, "Elias told POLITICO. We know that appearing first on the ballot gives a real advantage to a candidate. in the last elections in the Senate and the governor the elections were very close. We are fighting for Floridians to have the right to have a fair election in 2020 and beyond. "

"This is a simple case: the law is unconstitutional because it treats political parties of the same situation differently, to the detriment of the plaintiffs, and none of the interests identified by the state is sufficient to compensate for this legal burden," wrote the authors. lawyers may file before the trial.

Walker, who last year criticized Florida officials for making the state a "laughing stock" in elections, was skeptical about the arguments advanced to here. He rejected a request to block the law last year when filing the complaint, but also rejected the dismissal requests.