South Florida candidate sues election official, alleging bias in a contentious, razor-thin race

MIAMI — South Florida Democratic congressional candidate Eliott Rodriguez filed a federal lawsuit against the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections Friday, citing bias after she declined to recuse herself from the recount process. Incumbent Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar is named in the lawsuit as well.

The lawsuit seeks to bar Miami-Dade supervisor of elections, Alina García, from acting as a deciding member of the county canvassing board for the 27th Congressional District, where the results are razor-thin.

Salazar was leading Rodriguez by 1,103 votes or 0.44 percentage points as of Thursday evening. Florida law requires automatic recounts when there is less than a 0.5-point margin. The canvassing board oversees the recount.

Rodriguez’s campaign demanded Thursday that García recuse herself from oversight of the recount.

The Rodriguez campaign alleged the attorney representing Salazar in the recount, Robert Fernández, is García’s son-in-law and requested immediate confirmation, saying the relationship would raise additional serious concerns, according to the complaint.

The campaign also cited in the lawsuit an interview García gave to The Miami Herald on election night stating, “Maria Elvira is the winner, with or without a recount” and that it was “possible but not probable” there were enough remaining ballots to flip the results.

She added that recounts almost never end up going the other way. “Usually the trend we see is what continues,” García was quoted as saying. In other words, if Salazar is ahead, it will likely remain that way.

The Miami Herald also reported that Oren Rosenthal, general counsel for the supervisor of elections, estimated he’s seen about 20 recounts, and with the margin that Salazar was leading by on Tuesday night, he said it was unlikely the result will be overturned.

The deputy supervisor of elections, Juan Mendieta, told NBC News, “There is no conflict. She is not recusing herself.”

Juan-Carlos Planas, general counsel for the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee, ran against García in the 2024 supervisor of elections race.

“If candidates are going to hire relatives from the supervisor of elections, we’re going down a very dangerous precedent,” he said. “Can you imagine going into court and litigants are hiring relatives of the judge? The judge would be removed from office.”

On Thursday evening, the day before the final counting of ballots and certification of results was scheduled to take place, an attorney representing Rodriguez sent a letter to García demanding she step away from matters involving the race.

“This goes beyond any ethical standards. The canvassing board is a quasi-judicial body so she sits as a quasi-judicial official,” Planas said. “This is a quasi-judicial body and therefore she should recuse herself like any other judge would.”

García, a Republican who served one term in the Florida state House before winning the election for supervisor of elections in 2024, has posed in pictures with fellow Republican leaders, including Salazar and President Donald Trump. She is the first elected supervisor of elections. It was previously a nonpartisan position appointed by the county’s mayor.

Few pundits considered the race competitive this time around, but the district shifted 14.26 points toward Democrats compared with the 2024 presidential election.

Salazar’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

“My opponent is behaving like an election denier, attempting to turn this process into a political circus because he does not like election outcome,” Salazar posted on X Thursday night.

Salazar and Rodriguez are both Cuban American and former journalists. Salazár has won three consecutive terms to represent the heavily Hispanic 27th Congressional District. She and Trump comfortably won the district in 2024.

There were signs of trouble for Salazar in September when she released an ad where she broke with Trump on his immigration policies.

“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” she said in the ad while standing in front of the White House.

Her district has been particularly impacted by Trump’s harsh immigration enforcement, including a record number of deportations of Cubans. While Trump criticized Salazar after the ad, he eventually endorsed her before Election Day.