On August 30, 2016, Florida held its congressional-state office primaries. One of the closer contests was the race between incumbent Democratic congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in the 23rd district, which is mostly in Broward County. The results were: Wasserman Schultz 28,809; Canova 21,907.
Canova suspected that the results were inaccurate. On October 19, 2017, he filed a public records request to see the ballots. Federal law says election officials must retain ballots until 22 months after any federal primary or election. But after Canova filed his lawsuit, Broward County election officials disposed of all the 2016 primary ballots. Canova sued. On May 11, 2018, the state trial court ruled that the destruction of the ballots was unlawful, as was the failure of the county to produce the ballots so that Canova could inspect them. Here is the 9-page opinion in Canova v Snipes, Broward Co. Circuit Court, CACE17-010904.
Ironically, earlier this year, Canova withdrew from the Democratic primary for the same seat this year, and switched to being an independent candidate. Part of his motivation was despair that he could get a fair vote-counting process in this year’s Democratic primary. If he had won the case earlier, he might have remained in the 2018 primary. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.