Report: Feds looking into changed dates on election docs

Federal prosecutors are examining date changes on “cure affidavits,” forms used to change information on ballots lacking such.

The Department of State, reports POLITICO Florida, has “concerns” that instructions put forth in four counties said these cure affidavits could be returned by 5 p.m. Thursday.

The law requires that these be handled by Monday before the election.

And said “concerns,” including in Broward County, stemmed from the Florida Democratic Party.

The Department of State quietly reached out to three federal prosecutors based in Florida last week saying that voters’ rights could have been affected by the bad intel:

“Altering a form in a manner that provides the incorrect date for a voter to cure a defect … imposes a burden on the voter significant enough to frustrate the voter’s ability to vote.”

An email from Citrus County Supervisor of Elections Susan Gill that was obtained by POLITICO Florida described the process, part of a routine chase of rejected votes by mail.

The problematic and potentially illegal part: The “fact they actually changed one of the DOE forms.”

That concern was echoed by the Okaloosa SoE. The Democratic Party further told POLITICO this was a “distraction” from a “smooth recount.”

Tuesday, Gov. Rick Scott’s senatorial campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee sued the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections office for not allowing a designated representative for each group into the room where ballots are being recounted.

Both Scott and incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson have filed a series of lawsuits including one by Scott attempting to allow the state to take control of voting machines when they are not in use. That suit was rejected.

Nelson’s campaign filed lawsuits seeking to block canvassing boards from rejecting unconventionally marked ballots and another, which was denied, to extend the recount deadline. That deadline is Saturday.

Scott declared himself victorious in his U.S. Senate bid, but further counting of provisional and mail ballots put the two within a less than 0.25 percent vote margin, which triggers an automatic manual recount in all 67 Florida counties.

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Tampa Bay correspondent Janelle Irwin Taylor contributed to this post.