MULBERRY, Fla. — A nonprofit with roots in Florida has joined United Sovereign Americans in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida addressing election integrity concerns, specifically relating to the certification of federal and state level elections in Florida.
The suit, which names Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland as defendants, says that in 2022, Florida exceeded the permissible number of voting system errors produced by voting machines per the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.
HAVA is the current law of the land, and Federal Election Commission (FEC) experts estimate that under the law, only 63 vote counting errors per 125,000 ballots are permissible. If the number of errors exceeds 63 per 125,000 ballots, the lawsuit says, elections both at the federal and state levels cannot be certified.
According to the lawsuit and Citizens Defending Freedom, there may have been hundreds of thousands of errors produced by faulty voting systems errors, including “illegal duplicate registrations, voters with invalid or illogical voter history, voters placed in inactive statuses on questionable authority, backdated registrations, registrations with a modified date prior to registration, invalid or illogical registration dates, age discrepant registrants, and registrants with questionable addresses.”
That number of errors is a clear violation of the HAVA Act, the lawsuit says, and if the errors persist at 2022 levels, the certification of the 2024 election results will not be valid.
“Such errors jeopardize the validity of elections throughout Florida, bring doubt as to the accuracy and integrity of Florida's currently-in-place voting systems, undermine Floridians’ collective voting rights, all in violation of existing state and federal election laws,” the lawsuit says.
Citizens Defending Freedom and the rest of the plaintiffs are asking the court to issue an order compelling the defendants to correct the errors from the 2022 election, explain to the court why the errors occurred and prevent the errors from occurring in the November election and thereafter.
“We believe that a significant number of ballots in the 2022 state and federal elections in Florida, far more than permissible by federal law, contained errors and should not have been counted,” said Sarah Calamunci, Citizens Defending Freedom’s Chief of Staff and Florida Director. “If so, the 2022 election results were invalidly certified, and we’re trying to prevent the same invalid certification from occurring in November.”
Calamunci said that looking ahead and shoring up the integrity of our future elections is vital.
“Election integrity laws exist for a reason: so that elections in our state and our country are fair for all eligible and registered citizens who follow the correct processes, and to prevent and discourage illegal voting behavior. Citizens Defending Freedom takes pride in our work to protect election integrity, and that is what we hope to be accomplished through this lawsuit.”
CDF is a non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting transparency in government and safeguarding individual liberties. The group do not endorse political candidates for office at any level. CDF’s involvement in any lawsuits, including instances where we may be co-plaintiffs with political candidates or officeholders, should not be construed as an endorsement of any political campaign.
Founded in 2021, Citizens Defending Freedom is a non-profit organization that strategically employs county-level chapters across America to help citizens defend their faith and freedom, all while fighting for transparency in local government. Currently, Citizens Defending Freedom has official counties in Florida, Georgia and Texas. The group is rapidly expanding its footprint and expects to grow into one of America’s largest political nonprofits. Click here to learn more about Citizens Defending Freedom.