This database consolidates and tracks litigation concerning the effect of the pandemic on election law. The purpose of this tool is to provide an interactive list of relevant cases that can be searched by issue, court, status, and jurisdiction.
Case Details
Grimes v. Florida Department of State
Closed
Grimes v. Florida Department of State, No. 2020-CA-000908 (Fla. Cir. Ct., Leon Cnty.) |
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| Case Summary | A trio of voters have asked a state court to order Florida officials to send mail-in ballots to all registered voters both for the state's Aug. 11 primary and the November general election. A retired police captain who helps the elderly, an Ocala minister and a Miami man confined to his home have banded together as lawsuit plaintiffs to take Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee and Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley to court. The goal is to make vote by mail the default choice for Florida’s 13.7 million registered voters. It does not appear that any major voting rights organizations are backing the lawsuit, which was filed by Miami attorney Harvey Sepler. | |
| Filed | 05/13/2020 | |
| State | Florida | |
| Type of Court | State | |
| Status | Closed (Court granted defendants motion to strike third amended complaint filed by plaintiff. Judge filed motion to dismiss case with prejudice.) | |
| Last Updated | 03/13/2021 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Vote-by-Mail (Failure to Mail Ballots w/out Application to All Registered Voters, Postage Requirement, Mail Voting Deadlines (for Applying, Receiving, Postmark)) | |
| Complaint(s) | 05/12/2020: Complaint, Original Complaint filed. | |
| 05/13/2020: Complaint filed. | ||
| 05/29/2020: Complaint filed. | ||
| 07/29/2020: Complaint, Third Amended Complaint filed. | ||
| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 07/15/2020: Order/Ruling, Earley's (defendant Supervisor of Elections) Motion To Deny Granted. The court held that plaintiffs failed to allege a justiciable controversy. | |
| 07/20/2020: Order/Ruling, As in the previous ruling, the court granted the remaining defendants' motions to dismiss. Plaintiffs have 10 days to file a third amended complaint. | ||
| 08/13/2020: Order/Ruling, Named plaintiffs failed to submit a third amended complaint. New parties impermissibly attempted to join the suit as plaintiffs. The court dismissed the case with prejudice. | ||
