Miami officials are facing a lawsuit after they voted to cancel the city’s upcoming November election, pushing it to next year.
On Monday (June 30), Miami mayoral candidate Emilio González filed a lawsuit, arguing that the move to postpone the city’s election to November 2026 gives incumbent Mayor Francis Suarez and city commissioners an additional year of power without the consent of voters, per the Miami Herald.
“The commissioners unconstitutionally bypassed the democratic will of the people in a way that the Florida Constitution, the Miami-Dade Charter, and the City’s Charter expressly prohibit,” the lawsuit alleges. “Reminiscent of regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, or Cuba — the very places so many of Miami’s people come from — those in power, while in power, forced upon those voters what they think is best for elections going forward — and secured for themselves additional time in power, without a vote of the electorate. That cannot stand.”
Last week, city commissioners voted 3-2 to move the city from odd to even-year elections, effectively canceling the scheduled 2025 vote. Proponents of the move argued that aligning the city’s elections with federal ones wil increase voter turnout. City attorney George Wysong defended the election change as appropriate and legal.
“Somebody is gonna get that extra year, whether you do it now, or next year, or two years from now,” Wysong said at a June 26 meeting.
Critics of the move have accused city officials of pursuing a self-serving extension of their terms. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier both warned against changing the election date without asking voters first.
“Attorney General James Uthmeier has already warned that this violates the law, and Governor Ron DeSantis has strongly supported that position,” González, a former Miami city manager, said in a statement. “Disenfranchising voters undermines our democracy and robs citizens of their voice at the ballot box.”
González said he filed the lawsuit in an attempt to “defend democracy” in Miami.
“I’ve never sued anybody in my life and I’ve never run for public office so this is all new to me,” González told the Miami Herald. “But I’ve spent my adult career as a U.S. Army officer serving around the world promoting and defending democracy — only to find I now have to promote and defend democracy here in my hometown.”
Other candidates who planned to run in the November 2025 election have also criticized the postponement.
“Miami voters want new leadership in the city. For them, these elections cannot come soon enough,” mayoral candidate Ken Russell, a former city commissioner, said in a statement. “Commissioners enriching themselves and violating their own term limits erodes voter trust.”
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