Oct 18, 7:36 PM (ET)
By Michael Peltier
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - The candidate replacing Florida's disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley on the ballot in next month's election has been barred from posting signs at polling places clarifying that votes for Foley will actually go to him, authorities said on Wednesday.
Foley, a six-term Republican congressman, resigned from Congress on September 29 amid revelations that he sent sexually explicit messages to young male congressional aides.
Rules prohibited taking Foley's name off the ballot so close to the November 7 election. So the Republicans' replacement candidate, Joe Negron, had asked election supervisors to post signs at the polls telling voters that ballots cast for Foley would elect him instead.
But Florida Circuit Court Judge Janet Ferris ruled against posting the signs outside the nearly 300 precincts in the eight-county congressional district once represented by Foley.
"The problem with posting or delivering such notices at polling places, which would speak only to the District 16 Congressional race, is that the legislature did not authorize them," Ferris wrote in an order granting the Florida Democratic Party's request for an injunction blocking the signs.
Democratic party officials had said the notices would amount to a last-minute campaign boost for Negron, a state representative who jumped into the race with less than five weeks to go amid the mushrooming scandal that now threatens Republican control of Congress.
A spokesman for Florida Secretary of State Sue Cobb, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, said the agency would appeal Wednesday's ruling.
"We think voter education issues are paramount," said the spokesman, Sterling Ivey.
Article
