Conspiracy theories are bad, but conspiracies are worse.
How is it that so many left-leaning shills are crying foul over Rick Scott's suspicion that the 2018 Florida election is dripping in fraud?
What else should Scott or any other honest citizen call it when he finds a Democratic Party volunteer telling voters to correct their rejected mail-in absentee ballots while recounts were being conducted? That's a deliberate violation of the law.
Which is fraud in my book.
The report from POLITICO Florida and reporter Matt Dixon comes after the Department of State revealed it discovered election officials in four counties, including Broward, the bluest bastion of Democratic dynamism, illegally changed the date on mail-in-ballot-correction forms. That one action granted voters more time to fix their rejected absentee ballots than is allowed by law.
The so-called “cure affidavits” were supposed to be due no later than 5 p.m. Nov. 5, the day before the election, but the forms were changed to indicate they were due back by 5 p.m. on Thursday -- two days after the election. Department of State officials have referred the incident to the Department of Justice for investigation. And so they should.
“Altering a form in a manner that provides the incorrect date for a voter to cure a defect ... imposes a burden on the voter significant enough to frustrate the voter’s ability to vote,” Florida Department of State interim general counsel Bradley McVay wrote in a letter sent to federal prosecutors on Nov. 9 and released publicly on Tuesday.
In an email chain released with the Nov. 9 letter, Citrus County Supervisor of Elections Susan Gill said a voter who received an illegally modified “cure affidavit” also received a call from the office of the Florida Democratic Party, indicating party volunteers were calling voters to correct rejected mail-in ballots.
Broward County, meanwhile, is like a rolling crime wave.
Boxes of ballots magically show up in the trunks of rental cars at Fort Lauderdale International Airport -- cars last rented by Democratic operatives. The National Review's Kevin D. Williamson asks, "What is this, a Coen Brothers movie? At least Saddam Hussein had the good taste to be amusing when he was stuffing the ballot boxes."
Williamson talks more about Snipes. "That voting fraud that our Democratic friends insist never happens happens quite a lot under Snipes’s watch," he reports. "She has allowed disenfranchised felons and illegal aliens to vote; sent out mail-in ballots in which a proposed constitutional amendment was simply omitted; secretly opened ballots to thwart oversight. Her team doesn’t seem to be able to add up votes very quick -- except when they add them up too quickly: In one truly banana-republic shenanigan, her office posted a final vote tally while the polls were still open."
Have a look at Scott's complaint against Snipes. It tells a lot of it.
Recounts in the Florida gubernatorial and Senate races began Saturday and must conclude by 3 p.m. Thursday or else initial vote counts will be used to determine the contests. That's the law unless a federal judge rules no it isn't.
In this election there's been gross negligence that arises out of incompetence. But there's also been pre-meditated, underhanded, law-scoffing fraud. Rick Scott and the Republican Party have every right to suspect the Democrats in South Florida are trying to steal the election.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
