Patrick Murphy

Opinion contributor

The hallmark of every true democracy is fair, free and accurate elections. It's what separates us from the dictatorships and totalitarian regimes of other countries. The American people have faith that when they head to the polls to cast a ballot, that vote will be properly accepted and counted.

The state of Florida is no stranger to close elections. We are still ridiculed in political circles for the debacle following the 2000 presidential election in which Al Gore and George W. Bush battled over hanging chads and butterfly ballots all the way to the Supreme Court. In my very own election to Congress in 2012, it took ballot retabulations and weeks of legal wrangling before I was declared the victor by just over 2,000 votes — a slim 0.6% margin.

And now Florida voters are faced with recounts for three statewide races that are each separated by less than half of a percent — governor, senator and closest of all, agriculture commissioner, in which the margin between the candidates is in the hundredths of a percent. If it wasn't obvious already, it should be crystal clear that every vote counts.

Except mine didn't.

My absentee ballot was declared invalid over my signature

After it became clear that several races were too close to call on Tuesday, I decided to check my absentee ballot status on the Palm Beach County elections website – only to find that my ballot had been rejected because of an "invalid signature" mismatch. I've been a registered voter for over 15 years, and an active Palm Beach County voter for six, and yet that wasn't enough to get my ballot added to the official tally.

Voters who get notice in time can sign and return an affidavit that has to be received by 5 p.m. the day before the election. But my vote wasn't actually logged until Election Day, according to the Palm Beach elections website. There is no remedy to my situation after the fact, so unless that's changed by the county canvassing board or a legal challenge filed by Sen. Bill Nelson, the judgment call made by an unelected county employee to reject my vote will stand.

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I wonder, how many others across the state has this "mismatch" scenario affected without their knowledge? Would the single parent working two jobs or the snowbird heading out of town to see family for the holidays see this notice in time to make the correction? For races being decided in the hundreds of votes out of more than 8 million cast, the decision to summarily reject a validly cast ballot is unfathomable.

We must work to reform this system — now.

Just this week we made great strides in expanding the right to vote in another important way. Nearly 65% of Floridians chose to extend the franchise to ex-felons who have paid their debt to society. It is refreshing that after President Donald Trump tried to suppress the vote with a nonsensical voter fraud commission, Florida voters from across the political spectrum chose to veer in the opposite direction and encourage more people to participate in the political process.

Treat voting as the most sacred right of all

But in other ways our system — not just in Florida, but across the nation — continues to actively discourage voting. Polling places are shuttered at college campuses purely for political reasons. Early vote centers are underfunded and understaffed to the point where lines are hours long, snaking around city blocks. And voters are often purged from the rolls for missing an election or having minor errors in the spellings of their names or addresses. This is completely antithetical to the democratic ideals that we, as a nation, have fought for.

My vote on Nov. 6 may not end up being counted. But we have too much at stake at this time in our nation's history — from the threat of climate change to the disappearing middle class to the scourge of gun violence — to unfairly push people to the sidelines who want their voices heard. It is imperative that we treat the right to vote as the most sacred right of all.

Democrat Patrick Murphy represented Florida's 18th Congressional District from 2013 to 2017. Follow him on Twitter: @PatrickMurphyFL