Phil Ammann
Bruce Kaplan was a Republican until last Thursday. On Friday, he qualified to run for the Florida Senate as a Democrat.
According to LobbyTools, that might present a problem for the newly minted Senate District 38 candidate. Florida statutes require candidates to switch parties no less than a year before the start of qualifying.
Kaplan, notes the Miami Herald, is 368 days too late.
Miami-Dade elections record shows Kaplan, 56, was a registered Republican until June 23, 2016. State law mandates that Kaplan should have been a Democrat since June 20, 2015, to be eligible to run as a Democrat.
With that, Kaplan, a former Miami-Dade County commissioner, may not be a Democratic candidate for much longer.
Alex Daugherty of The Miami Herald writes that Kaplan signed the official candidate oath, which states: “I have not been a registered member of any other political party for 365 days before the beginning of qualifying preceding the general election for which I seek to qualify.”
The Florida Division of Elections does not control whether a candidate has violated the election oath before filing to run for office.
“The filing officer performs a ministerial function in reviewing qualifying papers,” FDOE spokeswoman Meredith Beatrice told the Herald. “The filing officer may not determine whether the contents of the qualifying papers are accurate.”
Candidates who were previously not registered to vote or have registered with no party affiliation can run in a party’s primary, as long as they join before the deadline to qualify.
In response to Kaplan’s entry, consultant Christian Ulvert, who works for Democratic rival Jason Pizzo, filed a lawsuit Thursday in Florida’s 11th Circuit Court.
