A judge has ruled that Broward County election officials violated Florida law by failing to report how many outstanding ballots they have in their possession. From the Miami Herald:

A Broward County judge ordered the county’s elections chief to turn over to Gov. Rick Scott’s campaign for the U.S. Senate an accounting of how many ballots were cast in the county, broken down by category, by 7 p.m. Friday.

Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips also held that Brenda Snipes, Broward’s supervisor of elections, was in violation of Florida public records laws for not turning the records requested by Scott’s campaign. She ordered Snipes to turn over the number of all ballots cast in the midterm election, including absentee, early voting and those cast on Election Day.

This is the result of a lawsuit filed Thursday by Rick Scott and the NRSC against Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes which said in part:

Voting in the 2018 General Election concluded November 6, 2018. Two days after voting has concluded, the Supervisor Of Elections is unwilling to disclose records revealing how many electors voted, how many ballots have been canvassed, and how many ballots remain to be canvassed. The lack of transparency raises substantial concerns about the validity of the election process.

This is an issue that Sen. Marco Rubio has been raising the alarm about on Twitter since Thursday morning.

#Broward election supervisors ongoing violation of #Florida law requiring timely reporting isn’t just annoying incompetence. It has opened the door for lawyers to come here & try to steal a seat in the U.S. Senate & Florida Cabinet
#Sayfie

6/6

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 8, 2018

#Florida law requires counties report early voting & vote-by-mail within 30 minutes after polls close. 43 hours after polls closed 2 Democrat strongholds #BrowardCounty & #PalmBeachCounty are still counting & refusing to disclose how many ballots they have left to count. #Sayfie pic.twitter.com/ReXCaOzkZP

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 8, 2018

For demanding that Broward adhere to state law, Rubio was accused of to trying to stop some votes from being counted.

When did I ask anyone to stop counting? And how is criticizing repeated election failures by same election official a fight to stop vote counting?

Why can’t #BrowardCounty elections do what 65 of 67 counties did, count all votes in timely way & in compliance with #Florida law? https://t.co/dtujSqotYG

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 9, 2018

Every vote legally cast should be counted. That’s the law

Have no problem with recounts. That’s the law.

But last early votes were cast Sunday & had to be submitted by Tue evening. That the law too.

Yet 48 hours after deadline #BrowardCounty is only county still counting them

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 9, 2018

This morning he kept going:

Early Voting in #BrowardCounty ended 108 hours ago. Every other county,including neighboring Miami-Dade (which had 100k more votes cast) was able to canvass,tabulate & report to state by deadline. But #Broward still hasn’t finished & won’t disclose how many ballots are left.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 9, 2018

Finally, this afternoon, a short time before the judge’s ruling, Rubio posted another update thread:

Conduct of #BrowardElections office is in blatant violation of state law.

1. No early votes have been cast since Sunday. They had 2 days to tabulate them & submit to state by 7:30pm Tuesday as required by law. Yet as of latest update these are still only partially completed 2/4 pic.twitter.com/mmzJVZ6H5H

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 9, 2018

If #BrowardElections has some legitimate reason for why they have been unable to tabulate & report ballots they have had since Sunday night,like every other county did,they should disclose it. Instead they continue to operate under an indefensible shroud of secrecy. 4/4

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 9, 2018

Now a judge has agreed that Broward has violated the law and given them a few hours to rectify this, exactly as Rubio, Rick Scott, and the NRSC claimed. Maybe the media will take more interest in this dubious behavior by Broward County than they have so far?