Rep. Mack Bernard will appeal a ruling by a Leon County judge Monday upholding the rejection of 40 absentee ballots in his 17-vote loss to fellow Democrat Jeff Clemens in a race for a Palm Beach County Senate seat.

Bernard’s attorney, former Republican state Rep. J.C. Planas, said Circuit Judge Terry Lewis was wrong in denying his motion Monday to take testimony from the mostly Haitian-American voters whose ballots were cast aside by county elections officials.

Lewis reviewed the 40 absentees Monday in his courtroom and agreed that signatures on the ballot envelopes did not match those on file with the Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor’s office.

Lewis said state law allows him only to determine whether the county’s canvassing board was reasonable in making its determination, but Planas said the court can do more fact-finding.

“We believe that the law does not prohibit the court from looking at the voters’ testimony and looking beyond just the signatures,” Planas said. “We believe that the Legislature drafted that language to make it more difficult for ballots that had been deemed legal to be thrown out, rather than, as in this case, ballots that were deemed illegal…the right to vote is pretty big.”

Lewis said he will likely issue an order late Monday. Planas said he will challenge that to the First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee.

The judge, however, did side with the Bernard campaign in saying that nine provisional ballots cast in the election could be counted.

Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher, who brought 49 disputed ballots to Tallahassee by car over the weekend, testified Monday that the provisionals had been rejected because they failed to include the partisan registration of the voters.

Lewis agreed with Planas that they should be counted because the Bernard-Clemens race was a Democratic primary, and those who cast ballots were likely registered Democrats. Still, even if Bernard captures all nine disputed provisional ballots, he’d fall short of overturning Clemens’ victory.

“As far as we’re concerned, this election is over,” Clemens said in a teleconference with reporters following the hearing. “And it was over three-and-a-half weeks ago. And everybody believes it is over except Mack and Mack’s attorney.”

With the Florida Supreme Court set to hear arguments this month on the Legislature’s second attempt at redrawing Senate boundaries, the state Democratic Party weighed in Tuesday with a proposal of its own.

Democrats are offering justices an alternative after concluding that what the Legislature has drawn “reveals an intent to favor incumbents and contains multiple districts that plainly and directly violate constitutional standards.”

Effectively, the Legislature’s round two includes many of the same flaws that led justices to reject its first attempt in a 5-2 decision last month, Democrats maintain. And while justices sent the rejected plan back to lawmakers to revise in a special session, a second turn-down will result in a court-drawn plan.

Democrats clearly are banking on justices seeking guidance with their map-making by reviewing alternative plans that have been put before them. 

The Democratic Party plan evenly divides the 40-member Senate along partisan lines — with a proposed 20 seats having a voting history that favors Democrats, and 20 Republican-leaning. The Legislature’s plan before justices includes a 23-17 GOP edge in voting performance, analysis shows.

While the latest legislative plan before justices also only puts two current incumbents in the same district — Senate Majority Leader Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, and Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland — the Democratic plan makes three likely matchups, including Gardiner against neighboring Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando.

In South Florida, Sens. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, and Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, would be paired. So, too, would be Sens. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, and Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate.

In Palm Beach County, the Democratic proposal also would add a little more political uncertainty.

The Legislature’s proposed central county seat, with a majority black-Hispanic voting population, would be changed to span the upper half of Palm Beach County, from the coastline to the Glades. Reps. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, Mack Bernard, D-West Palm Beach, and former Rep.  Kevin Rader, a Delray Beach Democrat, have all been eyeing that seat.

A south county Senate district, already targeted by Rep. Joe Abruzzo, D-Wellington, looks like it stays largely intact, in the Senate plan.

Just in time for another election cycle, former Rep. Kevin Rader had a complaint filed against him dismissed Friday by the state Commission on Ethics.

Rader, a Delray Beach Democrat, was accused in 2010 of failing to disclose his partial ownership of an underwriters’ group on his state financial disclosure forms. Rader, at the time a state Senate candidate, said he owned Advanced Insurance Underwriters through another firm, Rader Insurance Inc., which he did disclose on the forms.

State ethics investigators found probable cause that Rader should have revealed his connection to Advanced Insurance. The matter emerged when Victoria Thiel, a tea party activist, filed the complaint a month before the November 2010 election Rader lost to Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers.

But Rader fought the charge. His attorney, Mark Herron, filed a legal challenge with the state’s Division of Administrative Hearings, arguing that ethics investigators misapplied the state’s disclosure law. As part of Friday’s finding, that case also will be dropped.

“In the heat of a campaign, people sometimes will file complaints without merit,” Rader said. “I’m extremely happy this has been dismissed and the commission took no action.”

Rader last month announced that he would challenge Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, in this summer’s Democratic primary.

But with Senate district boundaries still not set, Rader also acknowledged he is considering running in a proposed district in the Lake Worth-West Palm Beach area that has a majority black and Hispanic voting age population. Rep. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, filed candidate papers this week to run in that district. Rep. Mack Bernard, D-West Palm Beach, also is weighing a campaign for the seat.

“It’s hard to say what’s going to happen, because know one knows what these districts are going to look like,” Rader said.

After the first redrawn Senate boundaries were rejected as unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court, the Legislature has completed its second attempt at map-making. The redrawn plan now must win approval from justices.

Shortly before the House approved the Senate’s plan Tuesday for redrawing district boundaries, Rep. Jeff Clemens filed campaign papers to run for newly carved Senate District 27 in Palm Beach County.

The Lake Worth Democrat said the proposed central county district, with a majority black and Hispanic voting-age population, contains about 95 percent of the current House seat he has held since 2010.

“Other people may get into the race, but this makes sense for me,” Clemens said.

Rep. Mack Bernard, D-West Palm Beach, has said he is also considering running. Former Rep. Kevin Rader, a Boynton Beach Democrat who has said he plans to challenge Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, also is said to be sizing up the boundaries of District 27, which includes a big chunk of urban Palm Beach County, including Lake Worth, Lantana, Riviera Beach and parts of West Palm Beach and Boynton Beach.

The Senate map still must be upheld as constitutional by the state Supreme Court. Clemens was among House Democrats who joined with Hispanic Republicans in voting against the measure Tuesday, approved in a 61-47 vote.

Clemens isn’t the only House Democrat eyeing the latest district plan.

Senate Democratic Leader Ron Saunders of Key West said Tuesday he expects soon to announce his candidacy for the four-county District 39 seat now held by term-limited Sen. Larcenia Bullard, D-Miami, which her son, Rep. Dwight Bullard, also a Miami Democrat, also plans to seek.

West Palm Beach Democrat Mack Bernard earned a shout-out Monday for being among only a handful of lawmakers attending all 26 public hearings this summer on redistricting.

The grueling tour spanned from the Pensacola to Key West, with stops rural and urban along the way. “We learned a lot. And saw a lot,” said Bernard, after the House Redistricting Subcommittee noted his wide-ranging schlep.

With lawmakers returning to the Capitol for a week’s worth of committee hearings, recapping those redistricting hearings consumed much of the House’s day.

When it comes to redrawing district lines for the 120 House seats, members of the public, community groups, and local elected officials often urged lawmakers to strive to keep municipalities whole, without dividing them across more than one district.

Boca Raton and West Palm Beach were among the communities making such pitches; of course, some areas — like rural Jackson County in North Florida — sought to be divided among two state House seats, in hopes of gaining more oomph in Tallahassee.

Singled out during the summer’s hearing in Boca Raton were a couple districts – held by Rep. Steve Perman, a Democrat and Bill Hager, a Republican. Perman’s District 78 was criticized as unwieldy, stretching from the Fort Pierce area to Boca Raton; Hager’s district should be confined to Palm Beach County, some of those testifying said, rather than stretching as it does now, into Broward.

For Senate districts, Palm Beach County commissioners this summer also urged lawmakers when they begin creating maps next year, at least keep the current compliment of three Senate districts with a majority of their population in the county — out of the six districts that now touch the county.