Tipsheet

FL SEN: Provisional Ballots Left Unsecured In Sketchy Democratic County...Might Be Unverifiable

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  November 08, 2018 7:25 PM

Well, there’s more drama from Broward County. The Florida Senate race is right. Republican Gov. Rick Scott has declared victory over incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, but he’s only in the lead by a little over 18,000 votes or 0.2 percent. Anything less than half of one percent triggers an automatic recount. So, legal teams are being mobilized and lawfare is about to commence.  Like in 2000, the Democrats are only focused on counting just the Democratic votes—and we’re having issues with vote tabulation in this racein two of the most liberal counties in the state, Broward and Palm Beach. 

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) went on an extended Twitter thread this afternoon, noting that Broward’s election’s supervisor is a disaster at her job, she’s not keeping regular updates on how many outstanding ballots remain, and she’s dumping thousands of votes at a time, usually in the late night hours. It’s sheer incompetence. This person also destroyed congressional ballots in the 2016 elections (via Miami Herald):

Broward County’s Elections Department will receive special attention from state officials this November after a series of glitches, mistakes, and one case of illegal ballot destruction has some voters wondering if they should even trust the results coming out of the elections department telling them to “vote with confidence” on Nov. 6.

Following a court ruling in May that Broward Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes had illegally destroyed ballots from a 2016 congressional race, the governor’s office announced the Florida Department of State would send election experts to Snipes’ office during this year’s election “to ensure that all laws are followed” and “to observe the administration of the election.”

Snipes says the extra scrutiny is undeserved.

“I think the problems are blown out of proportion,” Snipes said as she led a reporter around the elections staging facility in Lauderhill in October. “Broward is nitpicked to the bone. Other places have the same problems, different problems. It’s just that they are not spotlighted like we are.”

Even beyond her own reprimand for authorizing the destruction of ballots, Snipes cannot deny the department’s patchy track record. In 2016, early voting results for Broward were posted a half hour before polls closed, in violation of election law. Her office was sued unsuccessfully because a constitutional amendment was missing from some mail-in ballots. The electronic system used by the county was also later found to have been targeted by Russian government hackers — although it’s unclear whether that affected results and had nothing to do with the early posting.

On multiple occasions, there have been problems with printing mail ballots. And in the August primaries, Broward was the last county to post election results. The department cited reasons from unexpected recounts, delayed jump drive delivery — rumor was they were temporarily lost — to a late influx of mail-in ballots that were still being counted the next day, leaving the results of several races unclear .

“We have consistently been the bottom of the barrel getting our voting results in,” Broward County Commissioner Nan Rich said at a September meeting to discuss how to prevent future delays in posting results. “I don’t want to be 67th in 67 counties again in voting.”

Rubio and others possibly see a Democratic attempt to steal this election. It’s a mess and totally inexcusable. The counties that were hammered by Hurricane Michael, a category four storm, were able to count their ballots on time and without delays. Now, some schoolteacher stumbled upon a box of provisional ballots that were left unsecured. With no chain of custody, we don’t know how long they sat there. They weren’t picked up. There may be no way to verify them. Some have suggested they should be trashed. This is what happens when some people tasked with making sure votes get counted in elections can’t do their jobs.

Provisional and mail-in ballots are the only ones that are left to be counted, according to Brenda Snipes, who obviously still cannot do her job well.

We’ll keep you posted. And you bet the RNC is watching. It looks like something very wrong is going on down there.

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