Scott’s lead over Nelson, who never conceded on election night, has shrunk to 12,562 out of 8 million cast since election night. | AP Photo Democratic group says Scott misused state office to 'interfere with election'

TALLAHASSEE — A new state ethics complaint asserts that Gov. Rick Scott broke state law when he held a press conference in front of the governor’s mansion on Nov. 8, claiming that he would not “sit idly by while unethical liberals try to steal” his Senate race.

At the press conference, Scott asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the Broward and Palm Beach county supervisors of elections for voting irregularities, including potential “rampant fraud” in Scott’s race against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.


The complaint, filed with the Florida Commission on Ethics, was sent on Friday by Washington-based super PAC The Democratic Coalition and is expected to be officially filed on Tuesday.

It alleges that Scott “ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate elections offices in Palm Beach and Broward Counties in order to corruptly aid and assist his campaign for election to the United States Senate.”

Scott's attempt to use state police to investigate a race that affected him “amounted to threats, intimidation or coercion against Florida election officials in Broward and Palm Beach Counties,” states the complaint. “Scott’s words and actions were an illegal attempt to use his office to interfere with the election for his own political gain.”

The complaint is the latest twist in the statewide recounts that are expected to be completed by Thursday at 3 p.m. Palm Beach County already has confirmed to media that it will likely not be able to meet that deadline, in which case the results on file should stand. Scott and Nelson have both filed their own lawsuits related to the election, while advocacy groups are asking Scott to remove himself from the recount process, the Miami Herald reported on Sunday.

The Nov. 8 event was organized by Scott’s Senate campaign, not his official office. During the event, he "asked" FDLE to investigate, but Democratic Coalition isn’t making a distinction between a request and an order.

“Florida law prohibits the use of state property and resources for partisan political purposes. … Rick Scott used the Governor's Mansion, which is state property, to issue a false and partisan statement in his campaign for the United States Senate,” J. Whitfield Larrabee, the coalition's attorney who filed the complaint, said in a statement. Larrabee is asking the ethics commission to open an investigation.

Scott campaign spokesman Chris Hartline told POLITICO in an email on Sunday, “I don't know what the Democratic Coalition is but I'm guessing they're more interested in trying to score political points than finding the truth.

“I'm not going to respond to a complaint so riddled with factual errors it's not worth the paper it's printed on. Feel free to send them the Senator-elect's actual remarks from Nov. 8th.”

While Hartline didn’t directly address it, there is a legal distinction between Scott as a political candidate asking FDLE to take up an investigation and his sending out a formal order as the governor. Hartline didn’t answer whether Scott’s campaign paid for props used at the event, including a podium and microphone. The governor’s mansion is the taxpayer-funded home for any Florida governor.

Scott’s lead over Nelson, who never conceded on election night, has shrunk to 12,562 out of 8 million cast since election night and is now among three statewide races subject to machine recounts. The other recounts are in the races for agriculture commissioner and governor.

Monitors sent by Scott’s Florida Department of State and the FDLE agree that there has been no official claims of voter fraud, but those efforts were criticized Sunday by Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi. She was critical of FDLE for saying there were no fraud allegations because there were no reports through the state’s election’s office. She said FDLE should have investigated on its own, not relied on election officials.

“It is incumbent upon you, as commissioner, of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, to investigate whether these documented irregularities constitute incompetence or intentional malfeasance and outright fraud,” Bondi wrote in a letter to FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen.

Along with votes currently being recounted, there still is confusion over whether poor ballot design contributed to about 24,000 more people voting for governor than U.S. Senate in Broward County, a theory Nelson’s team has downplayed. There are still more than 19,000 overseas ballots that have until Friday to be counted.

“What we know of those outstanding overseas ballots is that they are disproportionately held by Democrats, which could continue to chip away at Rick Scott’s lead,” said Daniel A. Smith, a University of Florida political science professor who studies the state’s voter rolls and trends.

Jon Cooper, the coalition’s chair, told POLITICO that the group also gave a copy of the complaint to Steve Simeonidis, general counsel for the Democratic Party of Miami-Dade.

Cooper said Simeonidis told his colleague that he believes the local party will be able to get an injunction barring Scott from holding more press conferences on the matter at the governor’s mansion.

Simeonidis declined to comment on Sunday.

CLARIFICATION: This report has been updated to reflect that Simeonidis spoke to Cooper’s colleague about getting an injunction.