The Florida Republican Party has announced plans to sue a Democrat-controlled county for illegally opening tens of thousands of mail-in ballots before they were legally canvassed.

Florida GOP Chairman Blaise Ingoglia recently told Fox News that Broward County officials had no permission to open the ballots but had started doing so anyway, Townhall.com reports.

Chairman Ingoglia sent a letter to Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes insisting that the “illegal conduct” outlined in his letter “threatens irreparable harm to the Republican Party of Florida and its voters” and demanded an immediate answer to his questions.

For her part, Democrat election supervisor Brenda Snipes insisted that her office is following the rules. In a response to Fox News’s Miami Bureau producer Heather Lacy, Snipes said they’ve done nothing wrong.

“We are following the standard practice for ballot-by-mail preparation,” Snipes insisted. “We haven’t done anything different than we’ve done in the past.”

#BREAKING: Broward Co. election supervisor Brenda Snipes responds to @FloridaGOP allegations of voting "violations." Snipes told me by phone pic.twitter.com/lgD9NWUjSV — Heather Lacy (@Heather_Lacy1) November 2, 2016

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.