A hearing has been set for a lawsuit one Surfside candidate and local Jewish leaders filed last week to delay the town’s mayoral runoff election until after Passover.

But the timing doesn’t bode well for the complainants.

Judge Lourdes Simon scheduled an evidentiary hearing for 2 p.m. Monday, one day before Surfside voters are to choose between Vice Mayor Tina Paul and Shlomo Danzinger, a former Mayor running to retake the job, who filed the lawsuit Friday with a group of Jewish organizations, rabbis and local voters.

Danzinger, Chabad of Surfside, United Orthodox Synagogues of Surfside and others seek to reschedule Surfside’s April 7 election to April 14 or another date that doesn’t conflict with Passover, which runs April 1-9 this year.

Defendants are the town of Surfside and the Surfside Canvassing Board, with Miami-Dade County also referenced as administering the election.

The suit contends that because traditionally observant Jews are prohibited from activities like driving, writing and using electronics during Passover, holding the election on April 7 unjustly disenfranchises them.

Of Surfside’s more than 5,700 residents, an estimated 2,500 are Jewish, with a significant share of them — about 35% — identifying as Orthodox or Conservative.

The plaintiffs cite the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Florida’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prohibits governments from substantially burdening a person or religious organization’s exercise of religion.

The law, enacted in 1998, requires the state to demonstrate a “compelling government interest” in imposing any such burden, while using the least restrictive means in doing so.

The suit also argues that vote-by-mail doesn’t fix the issue, since the runoff was triggered March 17, leaving limited time to request and return absentee ballots before many residents depart for the holiday.

“This isn’t about politics; it is about the right of every Surfside resident to practice their faith and cast their vote without being forced to choose between the two,” Danzinger said in a statement first provided to Florida Politics last week.

Courts have historically been reluctant to alter election schedules at the last minute, particularly when voting is already underway. Florida Judges, like their federal counterparts, often invoke concerns outlined in the Purcell principle about voter confusion and administrative disruption when asked to intervene on the eve of an election.

Those considerations could weigh heavily in this case, with an evidentiary hearing set less than 24 hours before the runoff election, by which point ballots have already been printed and mail-in voting is in progress.

Danzinger has run into that barrier before. During the 2024 Miami-Dade County Mayor’s race, he filed two late-stage lawsuits challenging incumbent Daniella Levine Cava. One was dismissed because ballots were already in voters’ hands. He withdrew the other, acknowledging it was too late to reset the election.

But Danzinger and his co-plaintiffs point to competing precedent. Nearby Bay Harbor Islands moved its April 7 election to April 14 to avoid Passover. And in 2010, then-Gov. Charlie Crist postponed a South Florida Special Election for the same reason.

The key distinction in those cases and this one, however, is timing; those changes were made in advance, not by court order on the eve of voting, leaving Simon to weigh a claimed burden on religious exercise against the practical risks of disrupting an imminent election.

Danzinger and Paul advanced to a runoff after neither secured a large enough share of the vote last month — more than 50% — to win outright. Danzinger took 49.2% of the vote, while Paul received 36.5%.

Third-place candidate Mark Blumenstein received a smaller share, 14.3%, eliminating him from the race to replace outgoing Mayor Charles Burkett, whose blog posts the lawsuit cited as evidence of discrimination against conservative Jewish voters.

Burkett denied any such prejudice and accused Danzinger of discriminatory practices, like flying Israel’s flag alongside the American flag at Town Hall, but no others. Danzinger and Paul are Jewish. Burkett isn’t.

“It’s not about any one religion,” Burkett told Florida Politics. “It’s about his intolerance for anybody else, his intolerance for any other views.”

At a Special Meeting on Monday, Paul accused Danzinger of bringing religion into a civic activity “in a way that is deeply troubling.”

“By framing this issue of the election date as antisemitism, he is creating a narrative that divides our community rather than bringing it together,” she said, according to the Miami Herald.

Burkett, speaking by email with the Herald, cited a newsletter from an Orthodox rabbi at nearby Bal Harbour that Jews are allowed to vote during Passover because it is for a “communal need” and “something that will be lost if not done.”

Town Commission members approved April 7 as the runoff date in mid-January through a resolution by former Commissioner Nelly Velasquez, with whom Danzinger frequently clashed during his two years as Mayor from 2022 to 2024.

Burkett and Paul also voted for the measure. Commissioner Gerardo Vildostegui and former Commissioner Ruben Coto were absent.

There is no early in-person voting during the runoff, though mail-in voting is already underway.

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