{"id":449360,"date":"2026-11-06T13:52:06","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T13:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/449360\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T13:52:06","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T13:52:06","slug":"eliott-rodriguez-wants-miami-dades-elections-chief-off-the-cd-27-recount-shes-not-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/449360\/","title":{"rendered":"Eliott Rodriguez wants Miami-Dade\u2019s elections chief off the CD 27 recount. She\u2019s not going"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrat Eliott Rodriguez\u2019s campaign for Florida\u2019s 27th Congressional District is demanding that Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia recuse herself from the race\u2019s recount process, citing comments she made about the yet-to-be-called contest and personal ties she has to Rodriguez\u2019s opponent.<\/p>\n

Garcia said she won\u2019t be stepping away.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not about favoring one candidate over another,\u201d Rodriguez\u2019s campaign said. \u201cIt is about ensuring that every legally cast vote is counted fairly and that the public can have absolute confidence in the integrity of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a letter that lawyer Jason Blank sent to Garcia\u2019s General Counsel, Oren Rosenthal, Rodriguez\u2019s camp called for Garcia to remove herself from the county Canvassing Board and any further consideration of the CD 27 race, including any recount.<\/p>\n

Garcia displayed clear bias in the matter, the letter said, by declaring on Election Night that incumbent U.S. Rep. Mar\u00eda Elvira Salazar, a fellow Republican,\u00a0had won the race outright.<\/p>\n

The Miami Herald<\/a> quoted Garcia as saying, \u201cMar\u00eda Elvira is the winner, with or without a recount,\u201d before clarifying that it was \u201cpossible, but not probable,\u201d that a recount could lead to Rodriguez winning.<\/p>\n

Blank also noted that, \u201ceven more concerning,\u201d Garcia\u2019s son-in-law, Robert Fernandez, is the lawyer representing Salazar in the recount process, \u201caccording to information provided to\u201d Rodriguez\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf true, voters would be asked to accept the decisions of an official who has already decided the winner, and while a close member of her family advocates for that very candidate,\u201d Blank wrote. \u201cRecusal would remove any question about the impartiality of the board\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blank added that he had also sent copies of the letter to Mark Herron, General Counsel for the Florida Democratic Party, and\u00a0Juan-Carlos \u201cJ.C.\u201d Planas, General Counsel for the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee. Planas lost to Garcia in the 2024 Supervisor of Elections race.<\/p>\n

When asked whether her son-in-law was indeed Salazar\u2019s lawyer, Garcia said, \u201cIt is possible. He is an election law attorney.\u201d She said she didn\u2019t know whether he was currently working for Salazar.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>U.S. Rep. Mar\u00eda Elvira Salazar met and posed for photos with Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia and Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez, both fellow Republicans, roughly six months after they won election. Image via Salazar\u2019s Instagram.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time someone has asked Garcia to remove herself from the electoral process. In early October, Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chair Laura Kelley called for Garcia\u2019s recusal after Garcia participated in a pro-Amendment 3 news conference<\/a> alongside other county constitutional officers and Miami-Dade GOP members.<\/p>\n

Garcia, a longtime Republican operative who served one term in the Florida House before mounting a successful campaign<\/a> for Supervisor in 2024, rejected<\/a> Kelley\u2019s request, positing that it came only because Kelley opposed Amendment 3, which passed<\/a> Tuesday.<\/p>\n

On Thursday morning, the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections website showed Salazar leading Rodriguez, a fellow Cuban American and former TV news anchor, by 1,116 votes, or 0.46 percentage points \u2014 within the threshold that triggers a recount<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By evening, that lead shrank to 1,103<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Garcia said Wednesday that Secretary of State Cord Byrd must order any recount after officials review outstanding ballots and submit unofficial returns, which are due by noon Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a recount is ordered,\u201d she said, \u201cit would not begin before Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s election timetable<\/a> requires machine-recount results by 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, giving election workers several days to complete the process. The schedule does not establish when results would first become available.<\/p>\n

County officials must submit certified returns by noon Nov. 16, with statewide certification scheduled for Nov. 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrat Eliott Rodriguez\u2019s campaign for Florida\u2019s 27th Congressional District is demanding that Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[45985,52347,67098,59496,174626,8878,123,125,124,174627,47480,34155,84640,97533,174628,174629],"class_list":["post-449360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-alina-garcia","tag-cd-27","tag-eliott-rodriguez","tag-jason-blank","tag-laura-kelley","tag-maria-elvira-salazar","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-miami-dade-county-supervisor-of-elections","tag-miami-dade-democratic-party","tag-miami-dade-gop","tag-miami-dade-republican-party","tag-miami-dade-supervisor-of-elections","tag-oren-rosenthal","tag-robert-fernandez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}