HomeElectionsCourt denies Alachua County’s motion to expedite appeal of ruling that at-large district ballot measure is “unlawful”

Court denies Alachua County’s motion to expedite appeal of ruling that at-large district ballot measure is “unlawful”

October 11, 2024

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The 1st District Court of Appeal has denied an emergency motion from Alachua County and the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections, asking the court to expedite their appeal of an October 8 ruling that the ballot initiative to reinstitute at-large County Commission districts is “unlawful… in that its ballot language fails to comply with the statute.”

The initiative was placed on the ballot by the Alachua County Commission in June after voters approved a measure in 2022 that made County Commission districts single-member districts, meaning that only voters in the candidate’s district can vote for the County Commissioner representing that district.

Alachua County filed the emergency motion to expedite the appeal on October 10, arguing that the October 8 ruling “gratuitously – and erroneously – ‘declared’ the ballot measure was ‘unlawful in violation of Florida Statute 124.011 in that its ballot language fails to comply with the statute.'”

The motion also argues that since the ruling has received “significant news coverage,… significant voter confusion regarding the status of the ballot measure will be inevitable… Appellants believe that expedited consideration and resolution of this appeal are necessary to prevent voter confusion and protect the integrity of the electoral process.”

The court’s order was a single sentence: “The Court denies Appellants’ emergency motion to expedite, filed October 10, 2024.”

Alachua County Communications Director Mark Sexton sent the following statement:

“While the County was hoping to expedite the appeal process to avoid voter confusion, the appeal will continue after the election. It is important  for voters to understand that nothing has changed pertaining to the November vote.
 
“The question remains on the November 2024 ballot. The injunction to remove it from the ballot was denied.
 
“The votes will be counted and certified, and the voters will decide on this issue.
 
“We are appealing the portion of the ruling regarding the ballot language to ensure the will of the voters is respected during the election of 2026.”

Jeff Childers said, “The County has now lost three times on the same issue. They lost at the ballot box in 2022. They lost in the Alachua County court earlier this week. And now they’ve lost their emergency request for a rushed appeal before the election. In baseball, you’re out after three strikes. How many strikes will it take for the County to learn it is wrong?”

    • Oh no my favorite minion Mini-Kenny Cornhole job is in jeopardy. I need him to stay in power and we all know he can’t win a primary against Thorpe.

      • Mayor back-Ward

        Please help me!!! We both know I can’t win in a primary in a single member district, especially if Thorpe runs again. Besides who better to tell the people on the east side of town what they need, but someone who lives in a million dollar house on the other side of town, like me. Yes yes yes Mayor back-Ward I am willing to kiss the ring again, just save me PLEASE!!!

  • Worse comes to worse the county commissioners will file the ballot initiative using the prescribed language in the statute in the next election and it will pass and all you fascist republicans can go to hell and good riddance. Move to Russia where you all will be most welcomed by dictator Putin and take DeSatan and Crooked Trump with you too.

    • Wrong. Reading a few items – the next step for the Plaintiffs (assuming the county redoes the language) would be a case that you cannot go from single-member to at-large districts.

      There will be ebbs and flows the next couple of years, but in the end…. There will be no at large districts.

      • Just more waste of taxpayer money by Democrat politicians who do not believe in democracy. Sad, isn’t it?

    • The only reason the idiot Democrats of alauchua County want at Large commissioners. It’s because then they can rule the county and not represent the people of high Springs, Newberry, archer, lacross, look like history, the commissioners get elected by the same idiots who elect the mayor and city commissioners of Gainesville that’s why you get marketplace and all the left-wing idiot ideals stuck down your throat

      • Most counties in Florida have at-large commissioners. Alachua County was targeted with a campaign of lies and misrepresentations by the state because our 2 now term limited GOP legislators are enemies of the county and it’s largest city because the voters there hate their guts.

        That’s a fact.

        If there was any principle involved they should have instituted referendums in all Florida Counties. There isn’t.

        By the way, every judge on the 1st Ct of Appeals is a Republican.

        • Most counties don’t have to deal with a large liberal university sitting in their lap.

          Many of the 55,000 sojourners that come through here for four year stints vote, and are very impressionable and often vote as one bloc.

          Let the permanent district residents determine the fate of their county districts.

          • Irrelevant to my comments, which remain a fact, but 4 year students don’t vote in great numbers.

            Should the snow birds on the west coast be denied a Florida ballot?

          • Certainly, if they are not legal residents of the State of Florida, they should not be voting in Florida.

          • Undergrads are way more conservative now as a group than they were even a few years ago. The times they are a-changin’.

        • From liberals, there are always excuses when they lose.

          Doesn’t change the fact….. YOU LOST! You will lose again!

        • Miami-Dade County was forced by an NAACP lawsuit to go from at large to single member districts. Almost immediately, Black and Hispanic representation came to the commission, from a previously all-white commission. Also, conservative Hispanic Republicans were even able to achieve a majority on the commission. At large districts are for racists and liberals who refuse to give up power.

          • Most Florida counties have at-large county commissions, so your last sentence assertion is obviously false.

            Further, most black political leaders here opposed single member districts based on their expected representation. You can agree with them or not, but the GOP campaign in favor of single member districts lied loudly and at the end before corrections could be adequately posted. There was essentially no campaign against SM districts and the county was constrained by law from promoting a position.

            Too bad the government isn’t similarly constrained in their campaign against some of the amendments.

    • Paulie is such a joker!

      The current County Commissioners needs adult assistance to file anything other than where they stick the money they are paid for ripping off the AC taxpayers!

  • Expect an Affirmance without an opinion (per curiam) in 12 to 18 months. The passage of the referendum would merely constitute a straw ballot that nullifies the referendum. The voters will decide a straw ballot of no legal consequence.

  • Excuse me, is Mark Sexton the Alachua County Communication Director, or the campaign manager for the county commissioners? Does he know the difference? He is like our local version of Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, but even less trustworthy.

    Mark is a government employee–our employee–and we pay this fine-arts major six figures to lie to us and attempt to subvert our will? He has the gall to stand there and say “voters will decide on the issue”?

    We already decided during the last election, Mark, and we decided that we wanted our representatives to live in the same district as us. Common sense to most people, but incomprehensible to Marxists who want one tiny concentrated blob of The Party to control everyone in the county.

    Not surprising that Mark was the architect for the county’s censorship efforts during Covid-19. He’s probably on his 10th booster and wears six masks alone inside his car.

    The ballot measure is illegal because it violates state law. All these cretins had to do was copy-paste directly from the statute, but they are so inept that they can’t even do that right. Even if Democrats somehow manage to harvest enough votes from local cemeteries to pass the measure, it’s null and void because the ballot was illegal.

    Hopefully both Mark and Karine will find themselves without a job after the next election cycle. The county can find someone more fitting to run its social media pages, like a college intern instead of a grown man.

    • “…we decided that we wanted our representatives to live in the same district as us. Common sense to most people, but incomprehensible to Marxists who want one tiny concentrated blob of The Party to control everyone in the county….”

      Most Florida counties don’t have single member districts. Are you saying they are all run by Marxists?

      • No, he is saying that WE get to decide the system we want. If we don’t like it, we should be able to vote to change it, and that is what happened. Having a tantrum and demanding to immediately have another vote because one side didn’t win is not acceptable to constituents. In this case, even if it is “legally” acceptable, they didn’t do it correctly (highlighting their incompetence, and further highlighting their incompetence when they couldn’t understand that the judge’s ruling was incontrovertible), so they will have to do it over again. Cornell deserves some kind of award for wasting the most county money in an effort to preserve the job he is so incompetent at.

        You don’t ever seem to be sensitive to marginalized people, to put it mildly, and you look up to bossy, self-important women (and soft-spoken Gainesville soy men) bossing people around for highly unintelligent reasons. Sexton should just do his job and not act as a PR/Marketing advocate for any issues that will be on ballots.

        • Mr Peabody, if you think we get to decide the system we want – putting aside that isn’t your position on the city owned GRU – you should have no problem with the current question before voters on SM districts, given that being in a general presidential election it will be before a larger turn out, and that the previous election on this issue was marred by a blatantly dishonest and unanswered campaign by it’s partisan proponents.

      • Suwanee county Columbia county Hamilton county Gilchrist county Dixie county Levy county Lafayette County Madison County have single member district not sure about Marion county but the rest of them I know for a fact, have single member districts

          • Also let me point out you jazz Leon County is single member district with Two at large Jefferson County is single member districts Bradford County single union county is single member. Duval is incorporated in the city of Jacksonville yet they are represented by guess what single member councilman

          • Interesting GH, but

            “In Florida, 23 counties use a single-member district system for electing county commissioners, while 38 counties use an at-large system, and the remaining six counties use a mix of both. ”

            Boy, that’s a lot of Marxist and racist counties in Florida.

          • These counties are only considered Races and marxist by idiot left-wing Democrats, who believe there’s more than two genders and illegals should be considered citizens

          • GH, try to keep up. Those agreeing with you have stated here that only racist and Marxists would support at-large county commissioners when most of Florida’s counties have that type of governance.

  • Comments confirm who the Cabreras cater to and how they publish only very selective news. I read it to get a flavor how some folks think & react – very telling.

    • Journalism by definition is selective news.

      But it is interesting that the Chronicle’s extended form reports on the proceedings of various governmental bodies are somehow more selective than other sources.

      For me, they are a welcome addition to the very limited coverage of these events printed by Mullet Wrapper et. al. Without exception, the latter’s reports boil down to a reprint the press releases by government employees like Sexton and Co. This may come from a lack of resources to do original reporting or an editorial choice. But the end result is the same.

      The Chronicle also regularly publishes governmental press releases and puff articles.

    • Bill: I’m calling BS on you…they printed your comment…AC is good unbiased journalism…not crap like the alligator or GNV Sun…I don’t think the Sun is even in biz anymore…haven’t read one in years but lined my parrot cage with it..

      • The Sun is struggling and in a death rattle, like almost all local newspapers across America. This is not something to celebrate. It is currently USA Today with a Florida desk – which is not bad – and maybe one G’ville reporter who ocassionally has info you won’t find elsewhere.

        The Alligator had the best reporting on the Sasse fiasco – which is not over – and broke sevral big stories on it.

    • Bill, while the Cabreras are seemingly pretty conservative, I find Jennifer’s reporting of public events to be very fair minded, and while they publish a lot of crap press releases by DeSantis, Kat, and others, they seem open to publishing any sent to them, including from the county and non-governmental organizations and individuals who are definitely not conservative. It appears to me to be a lost opportunity for public presentation by a wide spectrum of local political viewpoints.

      The comments board on the other hand is a mostly odious collection of extreme right wing nuts and curmudgeons who’s knee-jerk positions are both predictable and void of relevant facts. Middle school level name calling is considered worthy debate here and impossible “solutions” – arrest all the homeless – serious proposals. Unless you like slinging mud and having actually thought out positions ignored – and I guess I must or I wouldn’t post here all the time – avoid them.

  • Why not make illegal alien voters legal too? Just tell the truth, Dems. 👹👺🤡👿💩

      • As someone who isn’t affiliated with and doesn’t like either party I can definitely say you aren’t being honest, Jazzman. This article is about the current ballot measure that has been ruled unlawful. The facts are:
        -at-large districts were abused by party politics for decades here
        -Voters finally decided to change to single member last election
        -your party attempted to preempt the voters desires before one election was even held
        -your party blamed ‘misinformation’ which is a synonym for info you disagree with
        -your party screwed up a template that was provided to them that could have allowed the current ballot measure. They literally tried to change the ballot wording that is required by Fla statute. They screwed up because they wanted to massage the wording to make it more palatable to voters

        • Slice, all campaigns exaggerate whatever will likely help them, however, as the vote approached, the pro-SM campaign – run by the usual GOP operatives who had managed to get this partisan attack on the ballot by state law – WTH?? – flat out lied about the positions of prominent black leaders in the county. This included billboards on Waldo Road, aimed at East side voters, and without adequate time – and who had the money – to counter these lies. You may or may not care what these leaders actually said, but if so, why lie about it?

          By the way, the fact that the current GOP is not right wing enough for you does not somehow make you bi-partisan or non-partisan.

          • Everyone who disagrees with you is a “far right extremist” and any information you disagree with is “misinformation”. No one is buying it anymore but please keep on digging your own grave

          • If you want to stick with the facts of this or any issue, let’s go. Most of you regulars don’t provide anything that even rises to the level of “misinformation”. That implies “information” of some sort, and whatever anger, prejudices, and tribal insults you pull from your butt is not “information”.

  • The same law which constrained Alachua County officials from organizing a campaign against the GOP funded ballot initiative for SM districts, has been conveniently cleared by the FL SC – all Republicans and most appointed by him – to give DeSantis and other state officials the right to wage a campaign using state resources against Amendment 4. This is more usurpation of power by Tallahassee, by our own dictator with the willing blessings of the apparatus of single party rule by those unscrupulous enough to repeatedly break established precedent.

    In this case, like the recent ruling on the SM vs At Large districts, the court avoids principle and instead attacks supposed procedural errors by the plaintiff.

    Hey, the right of the people? Not so much in Unfree Florida.

    “In responding to the lawsuit, the state argued that officials like DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody were exempt from a state law barring them from using their ‘official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election.’

    The Florida Supreme Court focused on more procedural issues in its ruling.

    Richardson ‘challenges a fundamentally discretionary exercise of executive power on the ground that it transgresses a criminal or regulatory prohibition,’ Justice John Couriel wrote for the court.

    ‘He has established no clear legal right as to which he can insist that any (state official) has failed in his or her duty to perform, and, in light of the statutes providing for criminal prosecution or civil enforcement, cannot show that there is no other remedy for the alleged wrong.’

    Thursday’s decision — on top of the denial of the other challenge, which was filed by Floridians Protecting Freedom, the pro-amendment group — makes it increasingly unlikely that the webpage or the advertisements will be halted.”

    Today’s G Sun.

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