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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

GAINESVILLE DIVISION

ACACIA WILLIAMS, DREAM 

DEFENDERS, NEW FLORIDA 

MAJORITY, ORGANIZE FLORIDA, 

RAY WINTERS, KATHLEEN 

WINTERS, and BIANCA MARIA 

BAEZ 

Plaintiffs,

v.

RON DESANTIS, in his official 

capacity as Governor of the State of 

Florida, LAUREL M. LEE, in her 

official capacity as Florida Secretary of 

State, and FLORIDA ELECTIONS 

CANVASSING COMMISSION,

Defendants.

Case No. 1:20-cv-67-RH- GRJ

RULE 26(f) REPORT AND PROPOSED SCHEDULING ORDER

Pursuant to Rule 26(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and this Court’s 

Order dated March 18, 2020 (ECF No. 18), the parties to this case, by and through 

their respective counsel, jointly submit this Rule 26(f) Report and Proposed 

Scheduling Order:

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RULE 26(f) CONFERENCE

Pursuant to Rule 26(f), the parties held a meeting on April 6, 2020. Counsel 

participating on behalf of the plaintiffs were:

Kira Romero-Craft

Francisca Fajana

LatinoJustice PRLDEF

523 West Colonial Drive

Orlando, Florida 32804

(321) 418-6354

Gilda Daniels

Sharion Scott

Advancement Project National Office

1220 L Street N.W., Suite 850

Washington, D.C. 20005

(202) 728-9557

Stuart C. Naifeh

Miranda Galindo

Kathryn C. Sadasivan

Emerson Gordon-Marvin

Dēmos

80 Broad St, 4th Floor

New York, NY 10004

(212) 485-6055

Counsel participating on behalf of the defendants were:

For Defendant Ron De Santis, in his official capacity as Governor of the State 

of Florida: 

Nicholas A. Primrose

Executive Office of the Governor

400 S. Monroe Street, PL-5

Tallahassee, FL 32399

nicholas.primrose@eog.myflorida.com

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For Defendant Laurel Lee, in her official capacity as Secretary of State for the 

State of Florida:

Ashley E. Davis

Florida Department of State

R.A. Gray Building

500 S. Bronough Street

Tallahassee, FL 32399-0250

Tel: (850) 245-6511

ashley.davis@dos.myflorida.com

Tara R. Price

George N. Meros, Jr.

Holland & Knight LLP

315 South Calhoun Street, Suite 600

Tallahassee, FL 32301

(850) 224-7000

george.meros@hklaw.com

tara.price@hklaw.com

JURISDICTION

This Court has original jurisdiction over the subject matter of this action 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331 because plaintiffs assert claims arising under the 

Constitution of the United States, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 

U.S.C. §§ 12131, et seq., and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, 

and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988.

The court separately has original jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 28 

U.S.C. § 1343 because plaintiffs assert claims to redress the deprivation, under color 

of State law, of rights, privileges, and immunities secured by the Constitution of the 

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United States and federal law, and because Plaintiffs bring this action to secure 

equitable relief under federal laws providing for the protection of voting rights.

There are no issues regarding personal jurisdiction or venue. 

SUMMARY OF CLAIMS AND DEFENSES

A. Claims

Plaintiffs have asserted that Defendants’ enforcement of Florida’s vote-bymail deadlines and other voting procedures at this time of national public health 

emergency unduly burdens the right to vote of Florida citizens, including the 

individual plaintiffs and members of the plaintiff organizations, who are confined at 

home or who have been forced to take up temporary residence out of state, in 

violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and 42 

U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988. Plaintiffs have further asserted that Defendants’ failure to 

make reasonable voting accommodations for elderly citizens and citizens with health 

conditions that increase their risk of death or other serious health consequences 

should they contract COVID-19, including some of the individual plaintiffs and 

members of the plaintiff organizations, violates Title II of the Americans with 

Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131, et seq., and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation 

Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794. 

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B. Defenses

Plaintiffs’ Complaint and Motion for Preliminary Injunction solely relates to 

the Presidential Preference Primary. All of the dates in the Complaint and Motion 

for Preliminary Injunction have passed, as has the opportunity for the relief 

requested by Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs’ claims with regard to the Presidential Preference 

Primary are now moot. 

That said, Defendants understand that Plaintiffs intend to amend their 

Complaint to add new Plaintiffs and to include new allegations with regard to the 

August Primary Election and November General Election. Defendants also 

understand that Plaintiffs intend to supplement their Motion for Preliminary 

Injunction to address relief sought in advance of these elections. Because Defendants 

are unaware of the allegations that Plaintiffs intend to make in the future, it is 

difficult to meaningfully address Plaintiffs’ claims at this time or to identify an 

exhaustive list of issues that the Court will need to determine. It is unclear why any 

of the Plaintiffs are unable to timely request a vote-by-mail ballot for elections that 

are still months away. Defendants deny Plaintiffs’ allegations of violations of 

constitutional or federal law.

At a minimum, in addition to the issues identified above by the Plaintiffs, 

additional disputed legal issues that will need resolution will include the mootness 

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and/or ripeness of Plaintiffs’ claims and whether the Plaintiffs have standing to 

pursue their claims. 

SETTLEMENT DISCUSSIONS

The Parties have considered possibilities for promptly settling or resolving the 

case. Those settlement discussions will continue so long as the Parties believe that 

progress may be made.

CONSENT TO PROCEED BEFORE A MAGISTRATE JUDGE

The Parties have conferred regarding consent to proceed before a magistrate 

judge.

SUBJECTS AND NATURE OF DISCOVERY

A. Subjects of Discovery by Plaintiff 

Issues on which plaintiffs will need to conduct discovery include, inter alia, 

the following:

• The impact of Florida’s vote-by-mail rules and polling-place procedures on 

voters affected by the COVID-19 crisis in the 2020 Presidential Preference 

Primary;

• The feasibility of changes to Florida’s vote-by-mail rules and polling-place 

procedures to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on voters in future 

elections;

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• The impact of Florida’s voter registration and voter-roll maintenance 

procedures on the ability of voters impacted by the COVID-19 crisis to 

register to vote, update their voter registrations, and/or obtain mail ballots;

• Any and all defenses raised by Defendants.

B. Subjects of Discovery by Defendants

Defendants anticipate conducting discovery that involves, inter alia,

Plaintiffs’ standing as well as the nature of Plaintiffs’ claims. Defendants will have 

a better sense of what discovery is necessary after Plaintiffs file their amended 

complaint. 

C. Electronically Stored Information

Plaintiffs expect to seek discovery of ESI material including, but not limited 

to, communications, databases, memoranda, spreadsheets, and other electronic 

documents. To the extent any relevant and responsive material contains confidential 

voter information, the parties discuss the terms of a protective order to the extent 

permitted by law if production of the documents is necessary. The parties agree to 

produce, to the extent feasible, all ESI material in its original format, inclusive of 

metadata.

IDENTIFICATION OF DOCUMENTS PRODUCED 

A. Generally. Each page of each document produced shall bear a unique 

Identification Number (a/k/a Bates number). The Identification Number 

shall consist of two parts: (i) a prefix identifying the producing party; and

(ii) a page number. 

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B. Page Number. The Page number shall be ten digits. Documents produced 

shall be so paginated in production order. Any gaps in number shall be 

identified contemporaneously with production by the producing party. 

MANNER OF PRODUCTION 

A. Service of Production via Tangible Media. Unless consent in writing is 

provided otherwise, documents shall be produced via online file transfer 

system, a DVD, or portable hard drive (“media”) to designated counsel (to 

be identified) for the receiving party containing one copy of each document 

and associated metadata and related information. 

B. Cover letter/email. The media shall be accompanied by a cover 

letter/email indicating the contents of the media, including the Bates number 

range(s) of the contents, the date of production, and the identity of the 

producing party. 

C. Service. In addition to furnishing the media and cover letter/email to the 

designated counsel for the receiving party, the producing party shall 

contemporaneously serve courtesy copies of the cover letter (only) on 

certain other designated counsel via e-mail. 

OTHER PROVISIONS

Electronic discovery shall be limited to ESI that is reasonably available and 

accessible to the responding party in the ordinary course of business. The Parties 

shall review all ESI that has been identified as containing relevant discoverable 

information for responsiveness and privilege. 

In accordance with guidelines described herein, the Parties shall produce ESI 

that is responsive and not privileged or otherwise protected. The parties agree that 

identification, review, redaction and logging of privileged communications can be 

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costly and time consuming. To limit the cost of a privilege review and make 

document production more efficient, the parties agree to use the protocols described 

below with respect to handling responsive documents that may include privileged 

information. 

1. A party may use the following method to satisfy the need to produce a 

Privilege Log. 

a. Rather than producing a Privilege Log that requires that a manually 

generated privilege description be included on a log, the parties may, for 

electronic documents of all types, provide instead a meta-data based 

Privilege Log that identifies the privileged document's beginning and ending 

Bates number; the document family's beginning and ending Bates number; 

the nature of the privilege claim; whether the document is being produced in 

redacted form; whether the document stands alone, has attachments (in the 

case of an email), or is an attachment; the custodian from whom the 

document was collected; the type of document; the file name or subject line 

(in the case of an email); the date the document was modified or sent; the 

document's author; and the "from", "to", "cc", and "bcc" fields if the 

document is an email. No additional description, narrative or information 

need be provided in the meta-data Privilege Log to satisfy the producing 

party's obligations. Both parties acknowledge that the meta-data for email 

and corresponding attachments will be based on and extracted from the top 

email in any responsive email chain and stand-alone documents will be 

manually populated in the absence of meta-data, and that this will satisfy all 

obligations pursuant to this paragraph. This provision does not apply to 

paper documents.

b. Upon receipt of the Privilege Log, the Receiving Party will have five

(5) business days to identify any document designated on the privilege log 

for which it in good faith and for good cause requires more information in 

order to assess the claim of privilege. The parties will meet and confer 

within five (5) business days of such identification to determine if the 

receiving party's questions can be resolved in a manner other than through 

the Producing Party providing a more detailed Privilege Log line with regard 

to such disputed items. If the parties cannot resolve any such disputed items, 

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the Receiving Party must, within five (5) business days of any final "meetand-confer" between the parties regarding the disputed items, send a written 

notice to the Producing Party listing the specific document(s) on the 

Privilege Log for which it is requesting a traditional privilege log line. 

Subject to the right of either party to file a motion for protective order or 

motion to compel at any time as appropriate under the court's rules, the 

Producing Party will within five (5) business days of receipt of such written 

notice provide traditional privilege log lines for the listed document(s). The 

time to produce such a log will be stayed by the filing of a motion for a 

protective order or motion to compel with regard to such disputed items until 

such time as the motion is resolved. In the event that a party determines in 

good faith that, because of the number of disputed items, compliance with 

the five (5) day requirement is not reasonably feasible, the parties will meet 

and confer to set a reasonable time period for production of the traditional 

privilege log entries. 

c. Nothing in this stipulation changes the requirements of state or federal 

law as to what constitutes a document or communication protected by an 

applicable privilege or immunity. Moreover, nothing in this stipulation 

precludes a Producing Party from satisfying their Privilege Log obligations 

through any other means that meet the requirements of federal law.

2. The parties need not include or identify, on any privilege or work 

product log in response to document requests, privileged documents constituting: 

a. communications between any party or parties and counsel for that 

party or parties that: (i) were for the purposes of litigating this case, or were 

in anticipation of litigation regarding the allegations made in this litigation; 

(ii) postdate the establishment of an attorney-client relationship between 

counsel and the party; and (iii) were not disclosed to anyone who, at the time 

of the disclosure, was a third party to the attorney-client relationship; 

b. communications between attorneys or their agents and litigation 

experts or consultants; and

c. documents created by then-current counsel (or by any employee or 

agent of then-current counsel) for the purpose of litigating this case, or in 

anticipation of litigation relating to allegations in this case, and not disclosed 

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to anybody who, at the time of the disclosure, was not a client of the firm 

creating the document at issue, an attorney for aligned parties in this case.

The Parties do not expect that the cost and time required for disclosure or 

production of ESI will be beyond what is reasonably available and accessible to the 

Parties in the ordinary course of business. The Parties have agreed to keep discovery 

requests narrowly tailored and to work together to reduce the time and cost of 

production where possible. 

The Parties have taken reasonable measures and adopted procedures to 

preserve potentially discoverable ESI that is relevant to this litigation from alteration 

or destruction in the ordinary course of business. 

Any inadvertently produced information shall be returned to the party who 

inadvertently produced such information, and production of such information shall 

not constitute a waiver of any attorney-client, work product, or other applicable 

privilege or protection. 

D. Issues of Privilege or Protection

None anticipated.

PRE-TRIAL PROCEEDINGS AND TRIAL

The parties agree a hearing on Plaintiffs motion for a preliminary injunction 

should be consolidated with the trial on the merits.

DISCOVERY PLAN AND PRE-HEARING SCHEDULE

The parties propose the following schedule for discovery and pretrial motions.

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A. Discovery Plan

• Initial disclosures pursuant to Rule 26(a)(1) shall be served no later than April 

20, 2020.

• Initial sets of interrogatories, requests for admission, and requests for 

production shall be served on or before May 4, 2020.

• The number of depositions, interrogatories, requests for admission, and 

requests for production shall be subject to the limits set forth in Federal Rules 

of Civil Procedure 26, 30, 33, 34, and 36.

• Plaintiffs shall disclose the name, address, and curriculum vita of any expert 

witness, and shall serve the report required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2) on or 

before May 18, 2020. 

• Defendants shall disclose the name, address, and curriculum vita of any expert 

witness, and shall serve the report required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2) on or 

before June 1, 2020.

• All discovery shall be completed no later than June 5, 2020.

• Pretrial disclosures pursuant to Rule 26(a)(3) shall be filed on or before June 

26, 2020.

• Objections to any Rule 26(a)(3) disclosures must be filed on or before July 3, 

2020. 

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B. Amendments to the Pleadings

• Plaintiffs anticipate amending their complaint to join additional parties and to 

assert facts and raise claims concerning elections occurring after the 

Presidential Preference Primary. Plaintiffs shall file their amended complaint 

or, to the extent leave of the court is required, shall seek leave to amend their 

complaint no later than April 20, 2020.

• Defendants shall file any responsive pleading or motion no later than May 11, 

2020.

C. Pretrial Conference

• The parties suggest that a final pre-trial conference be scheduled for the week 

of July 6.

D. Motions and Briefing

The parties request that the court modify the briefing schedule for plaintiffs’ 

motion for a preliminary injunction as follows:

• Defendants are no longer obligated to file a response to Plaintiffs’ existing 

preliminary injunction motion by April 20, 2020.

• Plaintiffs shall supplement their motion with additional facts and argument or 

shall file a superseding motion for a preliminary injunction no later than May 

18, 2020.

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• Defendants shall file their response to Plaintiffs’ initial and supplemental 

preliminary-injunction motions no later than June 17, 2020.

• Plaintiffs shall file their reply in support of their preliminary-injunction 

motion no later than June 24, 2020.

As officers of the Court, undersigned counsel agree to cooperate with each other 

and the Court to promote the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of this 

action. 

Dated: April 13, 2020 Respectfully submitted,

s/ Nicholas A. Primrose

Attorneys for Defendant 

Ron DeSantis

FOR DEFENDANTS

RON DESANTIS, in his official 

capacity as GOVERNOR OF THE 

STATE OF FLORIDA:

Joseph W. Jacquot

Nicholas A. Primrose

Joshua E. Pratt

Executive Office of the Governor

400 S. Monroe St., PL-5

Tallahassee, FL 32399

Tel: (850) 717-9310 

joe.jacquot@eog.myflorida.com 

nicholas.primrose@eog.myflorida.com 

joshua.pratt@eog.myflorida.com

s/ Kira Romero-Craft

KIRA ROMERO-CRAFT

(FL SBN 49927)

LatinoJustice PRLDEF

523 West Colonial Drive

Orlando, Florida 32804

(321) 418-6354

kromero@latinojustice.org

JUDITH A. BROWNE DIANIS**

GILDA DANIELS**

JESS UNGER**

SHARION SCOTT**

Advancement Project National Office

1220 L Street N.W., Suite 850

Washington, D.C. 20005

(202) 728-9557

jbrowne@advancementproject.org 

gdaniels@advancementproject.org

junger@advancementproject.org

sscott@advancementproject.org

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s/ Brad McVay

Attorneys for Defendant 

Laurel M. Lee

LAUREL LEE, in her official capacity 

as SECRETARY OF STATE FOR 

THE STATE OF FLORIDA:

Brad McVay 

Ashley E. Davis 

Florida Department of State 

R.A. Gray Building 

500 S. Bronough Street 

Tallahassee, FL 32399-0250 

Tel: (850) 245-6511 

brad.mcvay@dos.myflorida.com 

ashley.davis@dos.myflorida.com 

George N. Meros, Jr.

Tara R. Price

Holland & Knight LLP

315 South Calhoun Street, Suite 600

Tallahassee, FL 32301

Tel: (850) 224-7000

george.meros@hklaw.com

tara.price@hklaw.com

CHIRAAG BAINS*

Dēmos

740 6th Street NW, 2nd Floor

Washington, DC 20001

(202) 864-2746

cbains@demos.org

STUART NAIFEH*

KATHRYN C. SADASIVAN*

MIRANDO GALINDO**

EMERSON GORDON-MARVIN**

Dēmos

80 Broad St, 4th Floor

New York, NY 10004

(212) 485-6055

snaifeh@demos.org 

ksadasivan@demos.org

mgalindo@demos.org 

egordonmarvin@demos.org

FRANCISCA FAJANA*

JACKSON CHIN**

LatinoJustice PRLDEF

475 Riverside Drive, Suite 1901

New York, NY 10115

(212) 739-7572

ffajana@latinojustice.org

jchin@latinojustice.org

Attorneys for Plaintiffs

*Admitted pro hac vice

**Application for admission pro hac vice 

forthcoming

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