The Democratic Party in Florida - Gross Incompetence or Attempted Election Fraud - Again?

By

      Zeno Potas

       Here we go again as the Democratic party in Florida attempts to flip a decision by the electorate that they don't want disenfranchising the voters of the state of Florida and the nation. “We think it is a sign of desperation and goes to demonstrate the tactics that the Democrats, especially the Florida Democratic Party will resort to to steal this election from the rightful winners,” stated Michael Barnett, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party.

      This is not the first time these Democratic controlled counties have been accused of fraud. It is not the second time, nor the third, it has been going on for almost three decades. It has the real appearance of the Democratic National party attempting to get Florida into the “blue” column by hook or crook. They believe that by being successful at this task they would never again lose national elections via the electoral collage.

      It's not difficult to see that something isn't right here. Counties in the panhandle, devastated by a massive hurricane were still able to get their vote totals in on time, yet......these two counties, in every election in recent memory, - can't get it done? There are no hanging chads this time to blame it on. County officials blatantly disregarded the Florida law requiring that all vote-by-mail and absentee ballots be accounted for within 30 minutes of the polls closing.

       There are other campaign laws that the Democratic party seems to forget every two years. Lawyers for the Florida Democratic gubernatorial and Senate candidates objected Friday to the rejection of a provisional ballot cast by a noncitizens. They were rebuffed by their own peers. “Noncitizens cannot vote in U.S. elections," Marc Elias, recount attorney for the Nelson campaign, said in a statement. “Not a U.S. citizen, not counted.” said Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher. “It’s shameful, there’s no excuse for objecting to the rejection of a non-U.S. citizen vote, but this is just one example of the shenanigans and corruption we’ve seen from the Democrats in Florida for so many years. We will not let them steal this election from us,” stated Michael Barnett.

     Then on Friday, the Miami Herald reported that there were invalid ballots mixed in with about 200 valid ones, but not solution was immediately found for the problem. The error was found after Brenda Snipes, a Broward County official who has a long history of controversies involving vote counting, agreed to present 205 provisional ballots to the county’s canvassing board for inspection.

      In addition Supervisor of Elections Snipes said Tuesday night that 634,000 votes had been cast in the county. But, mysteriously by Thursday night, Snipes was claiming 712,840 ballots had been cast. Though the county’s voting locations closed at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Snipes said Friday that she still didn’t know how many ballots remain to be processed. Nor could she say how many provisional, military or mismarked ballots she had in her possession. The effect of these newly discovered votes that inexplicably appeared long after they should have been counted shrunk the leads of Republicans Gov. Rick Scott in the Senate race and former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis in the gubernatorial contest triggering a recount. 
 
     Democratic controlled Broward county has a long list of violations just in the last few years. In 2012 Snipes was criticized for absentee ballots that never arrived, balky scanners that didn’t work, slow reporting and mounds of ballots that showed up long after Election Day.

      In 2014 Snipes demonstrated such incompetence that even fellow Democrats complained her office made it difficult for people to vote.

      In 2016 Snipes allowed her employees to campaign on county time, violated state law by posting election results half an hour before the polls closed and was sued for leaving amendments off the ballots.

     A judge also ruled that Snipes’ office violated state and federal laws by illegally destroying ballots. But the ruling regarding her action illegally obliterating evidence two years ago did not come down until this year.

And there’s more.
     In 2017, accusations of ballot stuffing swirled around Snipes’ office during local elections. She even admitted that ineligible voters who were on the rolls and had voted.

      This year Snipes has drawn more fire. It was revealed that her office broke Florida law earlier this election season by opening ballots in private without observers present.

      Then after people complained they didn’t get their absentee ballots, it turned out that Snipes failed to notify some voters that their right to cast an absentee ballot had expired. She blamed it on not having enough funds to mail notifications. Maybe that was because she wasted her budget by sending some voters ballots with duplicate pages.

      This may all be rank incompetence, but perhaps these actions by two Democratic election officials are a smokescreen for something worse – a deliberate attempt to overturn the Florida election results.

      It appears that the their corruption still continues. In the election of 2016, Republican poll watchers complained that staff was opening absentee ballots in private, thereby making it impossible for groups to question whether ballots were cast, according to Politico. The GOP sued in 2017 to make sure Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes followed the law this time. Damn the law, this week Snipes refused to allow Republican officials to inspect all ballots before they are submitted to the Canvassing Board. And she refused other requests for public records that should be available under Florida’s expansive “sunshine laws,” drawing a sharp rebuke from a judge late Friday afternoon.

      In response to Republican lawsuits, Florida state Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips ruled Friday that “there has been a violation of the Florida constitution” and the state’s public records act by Broward County officials. The judge sided with Scott and ordered that Republicans should be granted “immediate access” to information they have requested about ballots Broward County.

      There are also problems in Democrat controlled Palm Beach County. On Wednesday morning, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher stopped filing updates of the vote count with the Florida Department of State as required by law. The law mandates that she report every 45 minutes until all the election results are in. Instead, Bucher dropped news of the 15,000 surprise ballots she’s counted. 
 
      Besides ignoring state law, Bucher is also refusing to allow designated official political party representatives into the ballot counting area. She’s kept them isolated behind a glass wall where they can’t see and hear all that’s going on – yet another violation of Florida election law.

      Then, breaking from normal practice, the Palm Beach County elections supervisor banned media from filming and photographing the high-profile midterm election ballot review process. Tensions flared and Bucher threatened to have camera operators and newspaper reporters arrested for filming ballot tabulation. This prompted NBC attorney Karen Williams to interrupt the three member canvassing board Friday afternoon to object to the camera ban “This meeting is illegal,” Williams said, before a heated exchange with Bucher’s attorney, Natalie Kato. 
 

      Despite objections from reporters, the canvassing board insisted that the meeting not be filmed or photographed. Five Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputies watched the meeting both from inside the room and behind the glass windows lead inside. Under threat of arrest and removal from the meeting, reporters shut down their cameras. 

 
      Even more troubling, Bucher has copied vote-by-mail ballots that she claims are damaged, but without allowing witnesses to observe the process as required by Florida law. In fact, she explicitly denied requests for witnesses to see her staff at work. As election supervisor, Bucher also assumed the power to determine what constitutes a “valid vote.” Under Florida law, she doesn’t have that authority. She can only refer questionable ballots to the county’s bipartisan Canvassing Board. This is not the first time these two Board of Election supervisors have shown contempt for their official responsibilities under Florida law, especially Snipes in Broward County.

     The facts are that local Democratic officials in Broward and Palm Beach counties in Florida are recklessly violating state law in what may be an attempt to overturn the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections for governor and the U.S. Senate in the Sunshine State. Republicans have questioned the handling of the votes and have pointed to past controversies in these two counties in particular as evidence that voter fraud may be underway. In addition, at least one ballot box for provisional votes was left unattended at a polling place – a school where it was discovered days after the election. The box was locked but not sealed, and could have been tampered with or stuffed. Could there be others?

      “For everyone concerned about ‘election meddling,’ Broward County seems to be full of it. And for those worried about voter suppression, that’s taking place in liberal Broward County, too. The will of the people is being subverted by Snipes’ illegal practices and sadly, the fate of Florida hangs in the balance of Brenda Snipes’ circus.” - Richard DeNapoli, GOP State Committeeman from Broward County, via a piece for the Washington Examiner.

      This looks like a repeat of the actions in Florida in the 2000 presidential election, when Democratic officials ignored state election laws – and were slapped down by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision. There may be a basis for the U.S. Justice Department to intervene and investigate this troubling situation in Broward and Palm Beach counties to answer the obvious question:
Are Democratic elections officials deliberately breaking the law and playing games to delay everything just long enough so they can create just the number of ballots needed to overturn the election results? Let’s hope it’s not too late and that any election fraud in Broward and Palm Beach counties in Florida can be reversed.

             

             BREAKING NEWS 

Affidavit filed by Broward Election’s employee provides eye witness account of Elections staff filling in blank ballots. When this was reported the employee was fired and told not to come back.

These two counties have been screwing up Florida elections for 30 years. First it was the hanging chads and now,with electronic machines, they still can't give us a count on time according to law. This is either CONTINUOUS GROSS INCOMPETENCE OR OUTRIGHT FRAUD. I believe it's the later.

- M. Richard Maxson