Parties who had been sparing in litigation over the preservation of Florida ballot documentation have agreed to a temporary ceasefire until after the presidential election.
The lawsuit was filed in July in the Second Judicial Circuit in Leon County by three state lawmakers, the Florida Democratic Party, several voters and a candidate for Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections. The defendants are Secretary of State Laurel Lee and nine local elections officials.
The plaintiffs sought an injunction to preserve all digital ballot images generated during elections in the event a recount is needed in the Nov. 3 vote. Currently, only 32 of the state’s 67 counties preserve these materials.
The issue at the center of the litigation is whether these images, which are created when paper ballots are scanned into voting equipment, are public records that need to be retained under state law. The plaintiffs contend that should be the case, since paper ballots can often be lost or misplaced when an election recount is mandated.
In a joint stipulation, the parties have agreed to delay litigation over the issue until Nov. 17. The agreement also requires all ballot images in question to be preserved for 22 months after the general election in November.
At the same time, the defendants’ lawyers have argued that the paper ballots, not the digital materials, are the official public records that need to be kept to comply with state law.
“I can confirm that the actual, paper ballots are already required to be retained under Florida law and are required to be used to determine voter intent in the event of a recount,” Mark Ard, spokesman for the secretary of state, told the Florida Record in an email.
Only the election supervisors directly entered into the agreement with the plaintiffs, Ard said.
“The secretary separately agreed to abatement of the case but was not a party to the terms and conditions of the agreement the supervisors of elections entered into with plaintiffs,” he said.
Election recounts are mandatory in Florida whenever the margin of victory is 0.5 percent or less. The plaintiffs argue that the digital records may be needed in such recounts because paper records can be misplaced or damaged. During the 2018 general election, 3,000 votes could not be accounted for in recounts conducted for the U.S. Senate and Florida Commissioner of Agriculture races, the complaint states.