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Politics

Snipes Misses Her Deadline by 2 Minutes; It Costs Scott and Caldwell Hundreds of Votes

November 16, 2018 - 6:00am
Election workers in Broward County feed ballots into machines
Election workers in Broward County feed ballots into machines

Somebody might buy Brenda Snipes' latest tale of woe, but it won't be a Republican.

First the Broward supervisor of elections announces the county finished its recount 15 minutes ahead of schedule -- then, a little later takes it all back.

And all of a sudden Broward's results were uploaded two minutes after the state's 3 p.m. deadline, invalidating the whole machine recount tally.

It was all just an unfortunate twist of fate that the upload would take 17 minutes, said the embattled Snipes, who had just boasted Thursday afternoon that her office had never missed a deadline.

Republican Gov. Rick Scott is livid.

The two-minute miss wasn't a case of bungled ballot, the governor says. It was deliberate. He pointed out it just so happens the "unfortunate twist" voided a net gain of 779 votes for Scott against Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson. So, the county's results from last Tuesday’s election will stand until manual recount totals in the state's closely contested Senate race come in Sunday at noon.

Scott's campaign agreed it was all deliberate, accusing Snipes of intentionally submitting late results to invalidate them.

In fact, it was a deeper disappointment for Agriculture commissioner candidate Matt Caldwell, who is running a very close second to Democrat Nikki Fried. Had Snipes made the deadline, Caldwell would have moved more than 700 votes closer to Fried.

Snipes made no apology. "An election like the one we just finished almost always has so many moving parts and so many components," she said late Thursday. "I'm pleased that we were able to accomplish what we did accomplish in the period of time that was available."

Meanwhile, in the Florida governor's race, Republican candidate Ron DeSantis holds a sizable 33,683-vote lead over Democrat Andrew Gillum following the machine recount, a margin high enough under state law to avoid a mandatory manual recount. Gillum, who gained only 1 vote on DeSantis in the recount, still has not conceded in the race.

As of the 3 p.m. deadline for a machine recount of three close statewide contests, nearly all of Florida’s 67 counties -- except Palm Beach and Hillsborough counties -- had reported updated results.

“Basically, I just worked my ass off for nothing,” said Joseph D’Alessandro, Broward County’s election planning and development director.

D’Alessandro told reporters he had a hard time uploading the results because he wasn’t familiar with the website used to send them to the secretary of state.

“We uploaded to the state two minutes late so the state has chosen not to use our machine recount results,” D’Alessandro said in the surprise announcement. “They are going to use our first unofficial results as our second unofficial results.”

Broward has been under the microscope since the recount was ordered Saturday, and Thursday’s mistake is just the latest in a series of missteps for the largely Democratic county.

Last week, a judge sided with Scott's campaign in a lawsuit in which he alleged Snipes had violated state public records law and the Florida Constitution by withholding critical ballot information.

Earlier this year, a judge found that Snipes had illegally destroyed ballots in a 2016 congressional contest, leading the secretary of state's office to assign election monitors to supervise her office. But Scott did not remove her from office in June in spite of pleas to do so.

 

Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith

Comments

Brenda Swipes has been incompetent since day one, finally in the spotlight, her blatant incompetencency has become glaringly obvious to not just the state but the nation as well. Perhaps now, the Dem machine will be forced to show her the door.

She is not incompetent. She is corrupt.

How is it that Matt Caldwell won with more than forty thousand votes, only to have this Fried claim several days later that she won with five thousand? Who bought Fried all those forged votes? Her gun-grabbing puppet-master, Mayor Big Gulp Control Freak Bloomberg? Fried by her own admission knows nothing about agriculture but says she's 'willing to learn'? That's rich. Why does one get the impression the only thing she's interested in is revoking Floridians' gun permits, destroying Floridians' gun rights, and replacing them with Bloomberg's NYC-style gun prohibitions? Who stole those forty five thousand votes for her? Did Bloomberg buy Snipes a couple new dresses? Or is big-dope money behind this as well? Because Fried is a shill for the legalize-dope gangsters, isn't she? Do you get the idea that she'll arrogantly do great harm to our state and Floridians' liberty? She seems long on arrogance, willfulness, and spite and very short on decency, reason, and knowledge, doesn't she? Never, ever trust a gun controller, ever.

Excuses won't stand this time. There are many bright voters who voted this election who will not stand for the incompetency excuse not now, not ever again. Donald Trump brought out voters Florida has not seen before in a midterm election. Personnel will be held accountable if Pam Bondi and other County/State law enforcement prosecutors will do a fair and thorough unbiased investigation of the entire candidate/ballot/voting process resulting in arrests and indictments. I can't believe there isn't hard evidence of wrongdoing going back years in these Democratic controlled counties. We will not allow Florida Counties to any longer be run like the Dems run Chicago. We aren't going to wait until the Dems in Broward and Palm Beach Counties ruin South Florida. We can't let it happen. We already have lives lost due to "incompetence" with no one at the top taking responsibility. That is pure Democrat BS and it will not stand with the public, not this time, not ever again. Does anyone have any idea who is responsible for paying for law suits leveled against county officials? Is it us the tax payers responsible for covering Snipes's penalties? Just asking....

"Professional"?!?!???.... The ONLY "professionals", are PROSTITUTES ("pleasure" AND "political").... and anyone else in THEIR "games" !!!!)

Snipes must be thinking she's addressing IDIOTS. Her (pre-written) explanation was just to cover her butt - I believe she had this outcome PLANNED and executed it without ANY feeling of dishonesty...

Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Seems like Snipes probably took some pleasure at this stage of the game in denying Scott his 779 extra votes and Caldwell's extra 700 at this time!

Vote Blue you divisive hateful person.

Shouldn't you familiarize yourself with the website that you will use to upload crucial information BEFORE the deadline? Why wait until you are minutes from the deadline to check out the state website? Broward County and Palm Beach county were key in the 2000 debacle and one of their excuses then was old machines. Why haven't they followed the lead of other Florida counties and updated their equipment? It's not like they are poor counties! And why did Hillsborough county miss the deadline? They weren't even one of the counties mentioned as experiencing difficulties!

"It's not like they are poor counties." Someone isn't educated on the history of Florida voter suppression. They are Democratic counties meaning the Republicans who control the election process always make sure they have the most antiquated equipment that is most likely to break down. Same as in 2000, same as now. Scott is the last one who should be crying about "deliberate" voter suppression since that's all he's done in eight years. He could have removed Snipes at any time but kept reappointing her, knowing that having someone incompetent in a Dem stronghold would work to in the GOP's favor. Scott cut early voting, made polling stations in Dem areas as inaccessible as possible (i.e. moving them out of college student centers), and made sure that the most Dem areas had the least staffing, fewest machines, and longest lines. GOP's been playing this game for two decades.

Constitutional officers for each county are elected, not appointed by the governor. If the voters of Broward county want to keep an incompetent person in that office they may do so by simply reelecting them. It was possible Gov. Scott could have removed Snipes from office for violating state laws, i.e. destroying ballots that are supposed to be kept on file for a period of time, but he chose to overlook her incompetence or criminal behavior. The county commissioners of each county appropriate funds to operate all the county offices, including the Supervisor of Elections office; Gov. Scott was not responsible for Broward County's voting machines in any way as each county funds and manages their own elections, hopefully following both state and federal laws. You cannot honestly blame the governor for Broward or Palm Beach counties election incompetence.

Wow, I feel sorry for you that you are in such denial and trying to find any way that the Dems in these counties are not corrupt.

Another thing you have wrong. Scott didn't reappoint the democrat Snipes, she is an elected official. She was originally appointed by Jeb Bush when the last supervisor had to be replace, then it was up for election. The residents of Broward county elected her so it's not a position that Scott can go in and just fire her.

Actually, it appears it is you who are somewhat unfamiliar with the facts and the process. Each County Commisdion votes on the budget for that county’s Supervisor if Elections. The County Comisdion is responsible. So is Broward County had substandard equipment, you can put it down to the Dipervisir who neglected to request funding for better equipment and/or the County Commisdion (almost solid Democrats) who failed to but better equipment.

haha... You know that these counties got 11 million to upgrade machines? Their excuse was, we couldn't decide on which machines to buy so we just didn't upgrade them yet.

Right on! And, absolutely no doubt about it, Scott has attempted more voter suppression via any means possible in his eight years here than even that mook Kemp up in Georgia!

You seem to struggle with election law. Scott did not “keep appointing her”, Snipes is an elected official. Democrats keep voting to keep her in office. The state does not run the electoral process, that is all handled by the county officers, i.e. Brenda Snipes. Precinct issues, ballot problems, recount foul-ups are all due to the Democrat SOE, who was elected by her party.

Yeah, That uneducated someone is you. "Lock her up" along with Susan "election Butcher" Bucher. There are numerous democrat stronghold counties in this state that are very rural and poor, yet they managed to conduct a competent, and fair election. We are talking about two of the wealthiest counties in the state here.

Democrat run office, led by an elected Dem official, who has said she is fiercely Democratic, in a deeply Democratic County makes a move to benefit the Democrat candidates. I can totally see how you blame the GOP here!

Where is the accountability of these paid professionals? Blame others, make excuses, cry race/sexism, what about, "DO YOUR JOB AND DO IT RIGHT OR FIND A NEW ONE!" To intentionally fail or throw the game to see others fail or miss out on their fair score is criminal at the very least. While I see disgust, embarrassment, shame, and greed, others are celebrating, locating, and changing results despite voters wishes. One day, everything comes back at ya; I would love to offer a large sum of money to those who can prove fraud.

Agree with you here. If I missed deadlines like this at my job, I would be let go. We should not make excuses for elected officials either.

Somebody should make the can on this one but since I all those that are obviously criminally responsible are NWO Marxists (democrats) you can make book nothing will ever be done about yet another atrocity committed by the leftests. Looks like the ArtV COS is our only hope to save our country from the NWO elitists..

Comments are now closed.

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