Tipsheet

They’re Hoping Courts Bend The Letter Of The Law: Even CNN Admits Dems Have No Chance In Florida

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  November 15, 2018 12:45 PM

UPDATE: We’re heading to a hand recount. And yes, Rick Scott will probably win that too (via AP):

Unofficial Florida election results show that the governor’s race seems to be settled after a machine recount but the U.S. Senate race is likely headed to a hand recount.

Republican Ron DeSantis is virtually assured of winning the nationally watched governor’s race over Democrat Andrew Gillum. Florida finished a machine recount Thursday that showed Gillum without enough votes to force a manual recount.

Unofficial results posted on a state website show the margin between U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Gov. Rick Scott is still thin enough to trigger a second review. State law requires a hand recount of races with margins of 0.25 percentage points or less.

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This race is over. Even while Broward and Palm Beach Counties continue with their mandatory recount, incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is still trailing Republican Gov. Rick Scott by 12,000 votes. Barring a miracle, or massive voter fraud, there’s no way he’s going to win. Even CNN admits this:

Democrats hope a manual recount will overturn the results of Florida's Senate election and pave the wave for Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson to keep his Senate seat.

Appearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer projected confidence about Nelson's chances.

"Bill Nelson is -- is strong as could be," Schumer said. "He believes, I believe, he's won a majority of the votes, and as long as they're counted, he will continue being senator from Florida."

History says this is very unlikely and Republican Gov. Rick Scott will maintain his lead over Nelson. Indeed, there doesn't seem to be a precedent for the type of change Nelson needs to overtake Scott.

Scott holds a little more than a 12,000 vote lead over Nelson. That amounts to an advantage of about 0.15 percentage points, which is well within the 0.25 point margin needed for a manual recount required by Florida law. This margin may seem small, but for recount purposes, it is actually quite large.

[…]

In terms of pure votes, it doesn't look any better for Nelson. The average recount from 2000 to 2015 shifted the result by 282 votes. You don't need to be a math wizard to know that 282 is considerably less than 12,000. The maximum change in the margin in any recount from 2000 to 2015 was 1,247 votes. That is far less than the change in the margin Nelson needs to overtake Scott.

The post closes with saying that the next senator from the Sunshine State is going to be a Republican. 

Florida’s elections were once again marred by ballot-counting operations that were shoddy, to say the least. No, not shoddy; they were actually in violation of state law. Brenda Snipes and Susan Bucher, the elections supervisors for Broward and Palm Beach respectively, weren’t giving updates on outstanding ballot tallies, as required by law—and their practices were found to violate public records laws by a judge. They were order to comply with all records requests last week, which they decided to ignore. This action was brought on by a lawsuit filed by Scott, who rightfully was curious about the lack of transparency with the ballot-counting process; he had already declared victory over Nelson as well. 

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It’s not unwarranted. These counties are the problem children in state elections. In past elections, Snipes illegally destroyed congressional ballots in 2016 during the Democratic primary in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s race, she forgot to put amendments on the ballot, and her office posted elections results before the polls have closed. In 2018, the incompetence continues, while in Palm Beach, Scott’s campaign alleges that their representatives were barred from supervising the replacement ballot process, as required by law. Election officials can fill out a replacement ballot if machines can't read one. In essence, these officials are creating a new ballots, hence the need for witnesses. It’s a situation that’s ripe for fraud. Not saying that’s what happened, but the fact that Scott campaign officials were allegedly barred is fishy. Yet, it appears this race is about to be called soon. 3 P.M. today is the deadline for the recount to be completed. adsdafsdf