The case of the mystery ballots
A strange thing happened to the 2018 Florida election. Three days after the election, after one candidate conceded, boxes of ballots appeared, with about 78,000 votes and they appeared in a very predictable place - the Broward County election precinct. The same county with a long troubled history of voting irregularities. Presiding over the county's elections is the notorious election supervisor Brenda Snipes.
In Florida ballot totals and breakdowns are supposed to be available as soon as the polls close on Election Day. In Broward County they were not.
Vote totals were supposed to be updated every 45 minutes. In Broward County they were not.
Brenda Snipes
Here we find a history of gross incompetence and fraud. In 2016 the Broward County Elections office posted election results 30 minutes before the polls closed at 7PM. In 2018 a judge ordered for Snipes to stop opening mail-in ballots in secret or before the county's three-member canvassing board to determine the ballots' validity. In the 2018 primary election, about 5,000 vote-by-mail ballots were delivered late.
Most notable was the destruction of ballots in the democratic primary of 2017:
"The election supervisor in Florida’s second-most populous county broke the law by destroying ballots cast in last year’s congressional primary involving Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz , according to election-law experts across the political spectrum. The congresswoman's opponent has sued to get access to the ballots.
The case — one of three ongoing independent lawsuits plaguing Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes’ troubled office — stems from a June lawsuit filed in circuit court by Democrat Tim Canova. He had wanted to inspect the optical-scan ballots cast in his Aug. 30 primary race against Wasserman Schultz because he had concerns about the integrity of the elections office.
Under longstanding federal law , ballots cast in a congressional race aren’t supposed to be destroyed until 22 months after the election. And under state law , a public record sought in a court case is not supposed to be destroyed without a judge’s order."
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2017/12/15/experts-browards-elections-chief-broke-law-in-destroying-ballots-150258
Also notable was her admission when she was sued by a Conservative group the same year:
" Snipes acknowledged the processes her office have been using aren’t perfect and that some non-citizens and felons have voted despite not being eligible — especially right before major elections when groups are actively registering new voters. But Snipes said the precautions her office takes are important to make sure eligible voters aren’t removed from the lists by mistake."
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-sb-broward-election-supervisor-testifies-20170728-story.html
In the current debacle Snipes is in violation of Florida law which requires elections officials to “report all early voting and all tabulated vote-by-mail results to the Department of State within 30 minutes after the polls close." She has refused to even disclose how many ballots remain. At this point you maybe asking why this woman is still in charge? You may want to sit down. Broward County voters have re-elected her every 4 years since she was first elected in 2004. Who is voting down there? Your'e guess is as good as mine. Why hasn't she been removed or prosecuted? That's another mystery.
The only good news is that former Governor and current Senate candidate Rick Scott has filed suit.
Results were swift:
"A Broward judge ordered the county’s elections chief to turn over to Rick Scott’s campaign for the U.S. Senate an accounting of total ballots cast and a breakdown of votes by category — all due by 7 p.m. Friday.
Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips also held that Brenda Snipes, Broward’s supervisor of elections, was in violation of Florida public-records laws for not fulfilling a request for that information by Scott’s campaign.
Phillips ordered Snipes to turn over the number of all ballots cast in Tuesday’s midterm elections, broken down by absentee, early, and Election Day votes. She also ordered her to provide the number of ballots still to be counted."
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article221394790.html
On his way to Florida to help democratic candidate (incumbent Senator) Bill Nelson was former Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias. The same Marc Elias who was the Clinton surrogate to Fusion GPS, which, as we all know hired former British spy Christopher Steele to compile the dossier which included salacious and unverified allegations about President Trump.
Marc Elias
"We're doing this not just because it's automatic, but we're doing it to win, " Elias said.
The Governors race is also at stake as late ballots have eaten away at Ron DeSantis lead, leaving him with only a 36,000 vote lead over Andrew Gillum which triggered a possible hand recount. The need for a recount will be determined this weekend by Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner after all Florida counties certify their votes.
Matt Caldwell who is the Republican candidate for Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services also saw his lead evaporate. He went to bed on election night in a festive mood and a substantial (approx 30,000 vote) lead, only to wake up to the shock of a 3,000 vote defeat. It seems more ballots were found. They always seem to be democrat votes.
Recounts, lawsuits and military ballots are on the horizon. I'm assuming Marc Elias will want to toss out any military ballot that isn't properly dated. They trend Republican, don't ya know. Funny how the law is applied subjectively.
Good luck with the accounting. God only knows what has been done in the 72 hours since election night.
Article is LOCKED by author/seeder
Who is online
49 visitors
We have seen this movie before. Will this all end up with the SCOTUS?
This is a nothing burger, simply Scott trying to save his campaign and, throw blame for his loss on "Liberals" out to get him, it's bullshit. It isn't just in Broward county, it is in seven county's total and, it is also ballots that are coming in from out of the country from, you know, those guys and, girls who wear uniforms, I think they call them, the military? Don't you think every vote should be counted or, are you happy with some votes not being counted, especially when they might shift the balance away from a Republican?
Aren't any mystery ballots. The ballots are being counted.
Besides, Scott was governor for two terms with a 'friendly' legislature. Why didn't he address these problems? Oh yeah, golfing with the Trump.
Vic, you need a disclaimer on this.
It's called Op-Ed
Does every Florida election under gop control have to stink of corruption?
Rick Scott can't be trusted. Count every vote and then count them again...
Verify every signature of mail-in-ballots and prosecute any "community organizer" or election staffer who commits voter fraud!
I cannot understand why the person in charge is not thrown out and a committee made up of all major parties take her place. Doesn't anyone remember the "hanging chads" and the debacle that took place that ended up with the SCOTUS "appointing" Bush rather than Gore? In Canada, all 3 major parties appoint observers from their respective parties to supervise the vote counts and recording at every polling station. Is that too complicated for the Floridians to do?
The Supreme Court didn't "Appoint" Bush. they UNANIMOUSLY stood for the finality of elections. Once an election is certified it is done, under the law a recount may be had if warranted. Also under the law either of the candidates could pay for an independent recount.
All of those took place and when done bush was the winner.
Then the Democrats went on a tear of recount after recount..... with the Florida supreme court backing them up.....
The US supreme court cut it all down by supporting the law and the finality of elections. And like I said UNANIMOUSLY.
You are not supposed to win election by recounting your way into more votes than your opponent.....
It was over Bush won, nothing sleazy about it except the democrats trying to steal it and failing.
And here we go again....what is it about Florida?
I don't know, must be something in the water....
[deleted]
Lol. Just like the leftist loony in GA. The gun confiscator refuses to concede.
What good our laws if they are not enforced? No wonder such extremist views are finding "votes"
UPDATE:
Brenda Snipes just made a mini announcement (which was as clear as mud), in which she said that she mixed in 20 invalid ballots with a batch of 205 odd ballots and now can't find them. She also said the estimated 600,000 uncounted votes may actually be 700,000. Clearly she is in violation of Florida law and Court orders. The law continues to be unenforced.
The problem here is that Snipes and her officials are in possession of all the ballots - the unused ones as well as the ones which were used to vote with. If we can't simply get the answer as to how many votes were cast we have to assume the worst.
The latest:
" Lawyers for the Florida Democratic gubernatorial and Senate candidates objected Friday to the rejection of a provisional ballot cast by a noncitizen, according to a transcript obtained by Fox News.
The incident occurred during a canvassing meeting Friday in Palm Beach County, where provisional ballots were being examined. According to the draft transcript of the meeting, taken by a court reporter hired by the Florida Republican Party, a provisional ballot was ordered excluded from the count, as it came from a non-U.S. citizen.
“First one of these we’ve seen,” said Judge August Bonativa.
“Not a U.S. citizen, not counted.” said Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, according to the transcript.
It was at this point where lawyers representing Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., issued objections -- although they did not give reasons for those objections. The objections were noted, but the vote was still not counted."
Later the lead lawyer, Marc Elias corrected the junior lawyers, admitting that non-citizens don't have voting rights.
Yeah democrats, never come across an illegal vote they didn't like, as long as it was a vote for them....
Funny, how they usually are a democratic vote
In addition to years of Snipes' documented trail of voter corruption in Broward County, add this to the list:
Update:
"Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – Election workers in Florida are racing toward a Thursday 3 p.m. deadline to finish a recount that has thrust the Sunshine State back into the national spotlight.
Florida law mandates that any election decided by 0.5 percent or less will trigger a recount. Three fit the bill with two – the race for U.S. senator and governor – in the national spotlight.
The undecided races include the state’s Senate race, which pits incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, against outgoing Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, and the gubernatorial race between Democrat Andrew Gillum and Republican Ron DeSantis.
On Wednesday, Scott announced he will recuse himself from certifying the results of his own election. Nelson, as well as other prominent Democrats, had called on Scott to pull out of his role on the canvassing commission- a three-member board that signs off on the state’s election results.
Florida officially declared a recount Saturday and since then, the state’s 67 county election offices have been racing against time running their ballots through the tallying machine. Some counties only have a few thousand votes but the likes of Miami-Dade has more than 800,000 and Broward clocks in around 700,000."
.
The longer this goes on the more room there will be for fraud
And it seems from what I've read Brenda Snipes is good at it.