Down 1,090, Democrat Sues to Bench Miami’s Elections Chief Mid-Recount.

Democrat Eliott Rodriguez took Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia to federal court Friday. One day after she refused to recuse from Florida’s razor-thin 27th District recount, he asked a Miami judge to bar her from voting on ballot and recount decisions while Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar still leads.

The Florida Division of Elections shows Salazar at 124,528 and Rodriguez at 123,438 — a 1,090-vote, 0.44% margin inside the state’s automatic machine-recount line. Thursday’s demand letter is already on record at unga.news. Friday’s filing is the lawsuit.

What the complaint asks the court to do

The 16-page complaint, uploaded by the campaign and matched to the Constant Contact PDF Florida Politics linked, is styled for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division. CourtListener had not yet indexed an assigned docket number when checked; the circulated PDF still carried a provisional case caption. Rodriguez sues Garcia only in her official capacity under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause. Salazar is joined solely as an interested-party defendant under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19 — “against whom no claim is asserted and no affirmative relief is sought,” the complaint says.

The relief is narrow and concrete. Rodriguez wants a declaration that Garcia’s participation as a voting or deciding member of the Miami-Dade County Canvassing Board in the CD-27 contest violates due process, and a preliminary and permanent injunction barring her from those votes — voter-intent calls on rejected or outstacked ballots, overvote and undervote calls, and equipment-error decisions on whether recount tabulation must pause, proceed, or be repeated.

Under Florida Statutes § 102.141, the canvassing board is the supervisor, a county court judge as chair, and the chair of the board of county commissioners. If the supervisor is unable to serve or is disqualified, the commission chair appoints a substitute commissioner and the supervisor stays advisory. That is the statutory off-ramp Rodriguez wants a federal judge to force.

The election-night line he is hanging the case on

The complaint’s first pillar is Garcia’s election-night statement, attributed in a Miami Herald piece by Olivia Lloyd and quoted in the filing: “María Elvira is the winner, with or without a recount.” The same report, the complaint says, had Garcia calling a reversal “possible but not probable” and noting that recounts rarely flip results.

That is the due-process theory in plain English: the official who would vote on contested CD-27 ballots already named a winner before any recount. Rodriguez alleges that creates an objective risk of prejudgment. unga.news is not inventing bias. Those are his lawyers’ words, pinned to a published quote.

Family conflict, Friday appearance, October rematch

The second pillar is family. The complaint alleges that Robert Fernandez — Garcia’s son-in-law — represents Salazar in connection with any CD-27 recount. Asked about that Thursday, Garcia told CBS News Miami: “I don’t know, he could be. He does practice election law.” She also told CBS: “I will not recuse myself. There is no conflict.”

Florida Politics and WLRN report that Garcia’s daughter, Alyn Fernandez, appeared at Friday’s canvassing-board session. Rodriguez’s camp says an attendance sheet shows her signed in for RHF Law Firm; Garcia spokesman Juan Mendieta told WLRN she “came to the hearing as a member of the public,” and that Garcia is not recusing. Robert Fernandez told CBS and WSVN there is no conflict and called the process transparent.

This is also round two. In October, Miami-Dade Democrats sought Garcia’s recusal after she backed Amendment 3; she declined, telling WLRN, “Everyone sitting on that canvassing board is gonna have an opinion. I just spoke up about my opinion.” Laura Kelley, who pushed that earlier demand, is now one of the lawyers on Friday’s complaint. Juan-Carlos Planas, another Rodriguez counsel, ran against Garcia for supervisor in 2024.

Garcia’s Friday refusal — in her own words

After Friday’s canvass, Garcia told WSVN she has not stepped aside and will not: “As I have stated previously, I have not recused myself, nor will I.” She rejected the courtroom analogy: “I am not a judge. This is not a judicial hearing and I am not the one counting the votes. Everything is transparent and open.” On the Salazar photograph the complaint attaches, she told CBS and WSVN she takes pictures with whoever asks — including, she said, with Rodriguez.

Salazar, for her part, already branded Thursday’s demand election denial. “My opponent is behaving like an election denier, attempting to turn this process into a political circus because he does not like the election outcome,” she wrote on 𝕏. She said she welcomes the recount and that Rodriguez should let the board and workers do their jobs. The complaint seeks nothing against her.

Recount mechanics and the next clock

Florida’s § 102.141(7) orders an automatic machine recount when unofficial returns show a defeat by one-half of one percent or less of the votes cast for the office. A manual review of overvotes and undervotes generally follows only if the machine recount lands at one-quarter of one percent or less. This race is inside the machine line and outside the hand-count line on the current unofficials.

Miami-Dade’s published Notice of Hearing for the CD-27 automatic recount says the canvassing board will oversee the process commencing no sooner than 10:00 a.m. Monday, Nov. 9, or 10:00 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10, at elections headquarters, 2700 NW 87th Avenue. The start time is subject to change. CBS Miami reported the recount for 10 a.m. Tuesday. Unofficial county returns were due to the state by noon Saturday; Secretary of State Cord Byrd orders federal recounts when the threshold is met. Machine-recount results are due by 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, with statewide certification set for Nov. 17.

What to watch: whether a federal judge fast-tracks the injunction before the board starts calling CD-27 ballots; whether Garcia stays as a voting member or a § 102.141(1)(b) substitute is named; and whether the 1,090-vote Salazar lead holds through the machine recount.