On May 14, the Florida Election Commission voted 5-1 that the Florida Libertarian Party should not be fined for having filed a campaign finance report a week late. The fine had been imposed in January, and was in the amount of $70,000 ($10,000 per day). The party had actually filed, but with the wrong agency. The Commission agreed with arguments that the law is too vague, and that a plausible argument could even be made that the report is not mandatory.
The Green Party was also before the Commission at the same meeting, over its $10,000 fine for being a few hours late with the same report. The Commission voted to lower the amount of the fine to $200, which was 25% of all the money the party had in its bank account.
Great news for the Libertarian Party in Florida. They have some great candidates at several levels preparing to run. Without that fine, the party will be in much better shape to help them.
Awesome. Glad this was able to be cleared up. I definitely agree with @1; this will help the Florida LP quite a bit.
Richard, your article is not quite accurate. We did not file with the wrong agency. We correctly interpreted state and federal law, and filed with the FEC. It was the Florida Division of Elections that misinterpreted the law, and believed we were also required to file with the Florida DoE.
For full details, please visit: http://www.lpf.org/news-archive/libertarian-party-florida-vindicated-70000-filing-penalty/