Mayor Loco Leaves, But Miami Still Crazy Residents, Experts Question Court’s Authority To Toss Absentee Ballots As Election Fix

Miami’s political circus is supposed to be over. Xavier Suarez - the man known as Mayor Loco, the most ridiculed public official in America, the winner of an election that was riddled with ballot fraud - has been kicked out of office. There is talk in town of a return to normalcy, even a return to sanity.

But is Suarez getting a raw deal?

The end of his bizarre four-month reign should help restore Miami’s tattered image, but several legal and political specialists questioned whether it will help restore Miami’s tattered democracy. They warned that by giving former Mayor Joe Carollo his old job back rather than ordering a new election, the Florida Court of Appeals had set a dangerous precedent of substituting its own judgment for the will of the people.

“It’s just a remarkable situation,” said University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato, author of a recent book about political corruption. “I assumed they would just have another election. I was shocked when they reversed the results.”

So was much of Miami, which was named the most corrupt city in America by George magazine. Carollo was sworn in Thursday, while Suarez aides moved their belongings out of City Hall. Carollo vowed to end Miami’s run as a national laughingstock; Suarez vowed to appeal the ruling, and to launch a petition drive in Miami to force a new election.

It was the end of a turbulent period in Miami history, a time when Suarez earned national notoriety for firing three city managers in a month, for showing up at an angry constituent’s doorstep in the middle of the night, for leaving a rambling message on The Miami Herald’s voice mail threatening to pull city advertising if he did not get friendlier coverage. But it was also a rare intrusion by the judiciary into a major election.

“I don’t agree with this decision at all,” said Marsha Silverman, a professor of political science at the University of Miami. “It isn’t going to restore democracy in Miami. It’s going to throw the whole city into more commotion.”

The vote-fraud controversy erupted immediately after Carollo came within 155 votes of an outright victory in the primary. It turned out that Carollo had won 51.4 percent at the polls, but Suarez had forced a runoff with 61 percent of the absentee votes. A week later, Suarez beat Carollo in the runoff.

Then investigators as well as Miami Herald reporters began turning up evidence of widespread absentee ballot fraud in the primary: forged signatures, votes for sale, even a dead man who allegedly voted.

Last week, trial judge Thomas Wilson Jr. ordered a new election in May, citing overwhelming evidence of fraud. But on Monday, the Court of Appeals went even further, invalidating all 5,000 absentee ballots. “It’s a very surprising decision,” said Boston attorney William McDermott, who has dozens of recounts. “You want to preserve the integrity of the process. But do you want to tell everyone who voted absentee that they don’t count?”

The appeals judges argued that while voting is a right, voting absentee is merely a privilege. That cuts against the legal and political grain at a time when most efforts are increasing access to the ballot box, especially for elderly and disabled citizens who tend to vote absentee.

“It’s a very troubling argument,” said Richard Briffault, a professor of election law at Columbia. “It’s one thing to throw out the tainted absentee ballots. But to throw out all of them, to say that absentee voting is a disadvantaged form of voting, I think that’s a serious mistake.”