Rod Thomson

LATEST UPDATE — Saturday, 11/17/18 — 12:46 p.m.

Broward screws it up yet again, mixing ballots a different way!

On the second day of manual recounts in the Central Incompetence Zone known as Broward County, everything came to a halt this morning when lawyers from both parties — not election officials, but lawyers observing it — were mixing overvote and undervote ballots from the U.S. Senate race and the Agriculture Commissioner race.

Simply astonishing.

The manual recount started Friday when hundreds of trained volunteers sorted through about 32,000 undervotes and overvotes in the Senate race between Gov. Rick Scott and incumbent Bill Nelson. Today, volunteers began sorting through about 22,000 undervotes and overvotes for the Florida Commissioner of Agriculture race.

Republican and Democratic lawyers observing the recount found that some of the 10,000 overlapping ballots — supposedly overvotes or undervotes in both races — were clearly marked in the agriculture race.

“It appears there may have been some envelopes from yesterday mixed in,” Broward Canvassing Board Judge Deborah Carpenter-Toye told the Miami Herald.

Republican lawyer Joe Goldstein requested a recount of Saturday’s manual recount — oy! — so the wrong ballots could be sorted out. But the canvassing board chose to continue counting and instead have volunteers identify incorrect ballots for removal.

The voting was done by 9:30 a.m., but ballots still need to be certified by the canvassing board.

EARLIER…

Fewer vote totals after machine recounts

Former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who was made nationally famous during the 2000 Florida presidential recount, made a pretty good point on my show last night on Salem’s AM 860 The Answer in Tampa: Florida is a purple state and is always going to have close elections, sometimes razor close, in statewide contests.

It’s true. And that mean any little wobbles in voting that would go unremarked in other states with broad margins become the focus of intense scrutiny and publicity.

Of course we all know about George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000. But also Gov. Rick Scott won both of his elections for governor by a percentage point. It’s just common. And that, Harris said, means that all the little hiccups that happen routinely in elections become greatly magnified because of the tightness of races. She pointed out that elections offices across the country have anomalies and problems in voting, but it never rises to be a big deal when the margins aren’t close.

And so all the various oddities happening in the Florida recount are greatly magnified due to the importance of every vote. (This excepts Broward County, which is clearly incompetent and possibly corrupt outside the realm of the others.)

One of those oddities yesterday was that some of Florida’s largest counties ended up with fewer votes after the mandate machine recount than before it.

The final recount in Hillsborough County, where Tampa is, was 846 votes fewer than last Saturday’s total. Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer said that his office dealt with two power outages during the counting on Wednesday and, a la Palm Beach County, lost a voting machine.

But Latimer said he simply did not know whether either of those problems, or human error, contributed to the drop in votes counted.

Broward reported 3,500 fewer votes in the Senate race than it did Saturday, but those were not official as the county missed the deadline and so their original totals were uses in the statewide tally.

Again, a reduction of 800 votes in a county of 1.3 million people would only be a curiousity for geeky elections officials in a race with a wide or clear margin.. But that’s not the case here.

Final results for the Senate race will be Sunday, as no deadline extension has been granted.

Thursday, 11/15/18 — 10:14 p.m.

Manual recount under way for Senate race; DeSantis is Governor-elect

For the first time in Florida history, a statewide hand recount is now under way to determine the winner of the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by Bill Nelson as the machine recount that concluded this afternoon changed almost nothing. The worry that more Democrat votes would materialize has been assuaged, at least so far.

And the race for governor is over — unless of course there are more lawsuits and Judge Mark Walker decides to unilaterally change Florida election laws again.

The five-day machine recount of more than 8.3 million Floridian votes cast in the midterm elections resulted in very little change in the overall vote totals. Because Gov. Rick Scott has less than a 0.25 percent lead over Nelson, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner ordered hand recounts Thursday afternoon, as state law requires, along with a hand recount of the race for agriculture commissioner between Nicole “Nikki” Fried and Matt Caldwell.

The manual recount provides three days for each county’s canvassing board to review thousands of ballots that were rejected by machines because of “overvotes,” when a voter appears to choose more than one candidate in a race, or “undervotes,” in which a voter appears to have not voted in race.

The canvassing boards, which are made up of one judge, one county commissioner and the supervisor of elections, will try to determine how these voters intended to vote. The finals will be certified by Sunday. Judge Walker has rejected a request for that extension.

In the race for governor, the machine recount kept the margin the same, well outside the 0.25 that would trigger the hand recount, meaning that Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis is officially the governor-elect.

DeSantis issued a statement that was a reiteration of his acceptance speech on election night. “I remain humbled by your support and the great honor the people of Florida have shown me as I prepare to serve as your next governor,” he said, adding that the campaigning must “give way to governing and bringing people together to secure Florida’s future.”

However, Gillum had revoked his election night concession and has chosen not to yet today. More lawsuits are always a possibility.

Thursday, 11/15/18 — 3:16 p.m.

Nelson sues to block votes in hurricane-ravaged Bay County from counting

The machine gun spray of lawsuits being filed by Sen. Bill Nelson to try to turn a loss in the election into a win in the courts has added one more that may become infamous.

The Democratic incumbent for the U.S. Senate is suing Bay County Supervisor of Elections Mark Andersen to stop any ballots received via email or fax from being counted.

The supervisor told the Herald/Times Monday that 158 such ballots were accepted, though state laws do not allow emailed ballots, and faxing in ballots is only permitted for military and voters overseas.

Bay County remains devastated by Hurricane Michael that blew through about a month ago, with places such as Mexico Beach erased from the map and Panama City and others severely damaged. Thousands of people lost their homes and are displaced. Dozens of polling places were destroyed. Nelson doesn’t think there should be any extenuating circumstances for them, presumably because it is a heavily Republican county.

EARLIER…

Thursday, 11/15/18 — 8:46 a.m.

Federal Judge extends time to fix ballots

A federal judge has ordered all of Florida’s elections officials to give nearly 4,000voters whose ballots were rejected over mismatched signatures more time to fix the problem and for their votes to count.

Judge Mark Walker ruled early today that apparently all of the state’s elections offices have wrongly applied the law that lays out how voters can fix rejected signatures on absentee and provisional ballots. There were more than 3,700 ballots rejected in the Midterm election after canvassing boards determined that the signature on a mail-in or provisional ballot did not match the signature the state had on file for that voter.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s campaign sued last week to invalidate the signature rejection process.

Judge Walker issued a 34-page order granting a temporary injunction at the request of the Nelson campaign, and directed the state’s supervisors of elections to gives these voters until 5 p.m. Saturday to “cure” the problem. The law had given voters had until the day before the election to fix the signature issue.

If these are all Democrat votes, and most of them likely will be, they alone would not be enough to flip the two major elections. But they would get it closer.

In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott is leading Nelson by 12,562 votes, or 0.15 percent. In the Governor’s race, Republican Ron DeSantis is up 0.41 percent, or 33,684 votes, on Democrat Andrew Gillum.

Wednesday, 11/14/18 — 10:15 a.m.

Republican lawyers are killing it in election recount

Jim Bonfiglio, a Democratic attorney and state House candidate, filed a lawsuit Monday after losing to a Republican candidate for a Palm Beach County state House seat by 37 votes, requesting an extension of the ballot counting in Palm Beach County.

Leon County Circuit Judge Karen Gievers in Tallahassee Jim Bonfiglio during a telephone conference Tuesday that she would grant the extension.

But Republicans got wind of it and before Gievers could issue her decision in writing, attorneys for Secretary of State Ken Detzner filed a notice to move the case to federal court. That removed it from Gievers’ jurisdiction. The Republican notice was was filed two hours before Gievers’ order was issued — rendering it moot.

“She was writing the order when the removal petition was filed. Since the order was not put in writing, it was not effective,” Bonfiglio admitted.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker has now ordered attorneys for Detzler to submit briefs for their argument that the extension should not be granted by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Tuesday, 11/13/18 — 11:31 p.m.

Florida’s largest county, Miami-Dade, finished recounting its more than 800,000 ballots this evening at 8:12 p.m., with plenty of cushion ahead of Wednesday’s noon deadline.

However, one county north, Broward, the state’s second-largest county had only just begun its recount this morning. The Supervisor of Elections, who seems to be equal parts corruption and incompetence, said she was confident that Broward would meet the deadline and have the results in to Tallahassee by 3 p.m. Thursday.

Count us as skeptical, considering Broward’s universally awful track record in elections.

But never fear, if Broward pulls off a miracle and makes the deadline, one more county north, Palm Beach, has all but guaranteed that it will not.

The county’s 10-year-old ballot-counting machines overheated today, spitting out incorrect totals. That forced election officials to restart their recount of about 175,000 early votes, supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said tonight. Palm Beach has flown in mechanics to repair the machines.

The overheated machines have resulted in the loss of more than a day’s work, and Bucher said her office won’t make the 3 p.m. Thursday deadline.

Meanwhile, Gov. Scott is suing the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections for not allowing elections observers to be room where recounts are taking place. The observers are being forced to watch the recounts from an adjacent room through a window, and not able to hear election workers.

Lawyers for Scott and the National Republican Senatorial Committee say that’s a violation of state law.

Tuesday, 11/13/18 — 1:28 p.m.

As the election recounts continue across Florida, it looks like two statewide races — for U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner — will end up heading to a manual recount of tens of thousands of ballots by Friday. The race for governor is not expected to tighten enough to trigger a manual recount.

Of course, the race for the Senate seat has the country’s attention.

The Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times teamed up to confirm at least 33,000 votes will likely need to be manually recounted in the U.S. Senate race between Republican Gov. Rick Scott and incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson (plus 113,600 in the race between Republican Matt Caldwell and Democrat Nicole “Nikki” Fried for commissioner of agriculture.)

Those numbers are expected to rise based on preliminary data compiled by the newspapers’ team. “Comparing the number of votes in each race with the number of total ballots cast, there could be more than 125,000 overvotes and undervotes in the Senate race and more than 225,000 in the commissioner of agriculture race,” the papers reported.

Final official results need to be turned in by noon Sunday — not that Broward or Palm Beach will likely make any deadline.

An overvote is when a voter marks two candidates in one race while an undervote is when a voter leaves a race blank. Undervotes are not uncommon. On those ballots, hand recounts of just those ballots are meant to ensure there were no machine errors in reading votes.

By Florida state law, once the machine vote is done Thursday, a manual recount would be triggered if the number of overvotes and undervotes is greater than the number of votes separating the two leading candidates. Basically, if those all broke one way to the losing candidate.

The newspapers have determined that this is almost certain in the Senate race, where Scott is leading Nelson by 12,562 votes, or 0.15 percent. The race for governor is not likely to get a manual recount as Republican Ron DeSantis is up 0.41 percent, or 33,684 votes, on Democrat Andrew Gillum.

Monday, 11/12/18 — 9:48 p.m.

And now for something totally different: Broward County continues to screw things up and be a national embarrassment to Florida and a laughing stock for the nation.

While the deadline is 3 p.m. Thursday for all counties to report in their machine recount results, Broward is still sorting the first page from ballots and has not started recounting them. FYI, Broward is the most dominant Democratic county in Florida. Palm Beach County, which started recounting votes Saturday afternoon, is warning that they may miss the deadline, according to the Supervisor of Elections. FYI, Palm Beach is the second most dominant Democratic county in Florida.

Meanwhile other counties are plugging away. Miami-Dade, which is the largest county in Florida is half way through its recount.

Keystone Cops Broward officials said the page sorting process may not be over until Tuesday morning.

“They will not be completed with separating until late tonight or early tomorrow morning,” said Judge Deborah Carpenter-Toye, a member of the Broward canvassing board, told the Miami Herald.

In other developments this evening, a judge said he could find no evidence for the improper activities that would justify impounding Broward’s voting machines, Rick Scott on Monday dropped his motion to do so. Sure seems like there are grounds considering the number of irregularities and violations of state law, but surely the Broward judge knows best.

Monday, 11/12/18 — 10:16 a.m.

Several Florida media outlets are running stories today explaining that the likelihood of a recount changing the results of the elections are very small.

For instance, the state’s largest paper, the Tampa Bay Times, reported:

“…a recount that reverses an initial margin of more than a few hundred votes would be unprecedented in the recent history of American elections.

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan group FairVote, which advocates for electoral reforms that make it easier to vote, out of 4,687 statewide general elections between 2000 and 2016, just 26 went to a recount. Of those 26, just three recounts wound up changing the initial result of the race: The 2004 Washington governor’s race, the 2006 Vermont state auditor’s race and the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race. The average swing in those three elections after the recounts? About 311 votes.”

The Miami Herald ran a similar story.

Remember, Republican Gov. Rick Scott has a 12,500-vote lead over Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis has a 34,000-vote lead over Democrat Andrew Gillum in the governor’s race.

So, expectations…

EARLIER…

Sunday, 11/11/18 — 8:09 p.m.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has sent a stinging letter to the Florida State Police regarding their unwillingness to open an official investigation into the claims and evidences of voter fraud from multiple sources in the U.S. Senate race between Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Bill Nelson.

In the letter embedded below to Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Rick Swearingen, Bondi wrote that she was “deeply troubled” that Swearingen had not opened an investigation, despite the bevy of claims from candidates for office, members of the media and the actual actions of the Broward and Palm Beach supervisors of elections.

“I am directing you to take the necessary steps to promote public safety and to assure that our state will guarantee integrity in our election process,” Bondi wrote. “Your duty to investigate this matter is clear.”

Swearingen has not investigated because workers from the Florida Secretary of State’s office who are observing the election in Broward County have not reported seeing fraud. But of course, they have not observed everything that has happened.

Bondi focused in on what she clearly considers other specious reasoning for not investigating.

“It is troubling your agency stated that a complaint by a candidate, government official or elections officer was not put in writing and therefore the failure to reduce a request to writing is a legitimate reason for refusing to investigate,” she wrote. “Regardless of who the complainant is, I expect any responsible law enforcement agency, and certainly the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, to evaluate the credibility of the source who made the verbal request, gather facts, and conduct an inquiry rather than simply citing the lack of piece of paper.”

She bullet-pointed three sources of information, any one of which should result in an investigation, and continued to push the FDLE to do its job.

“Election officials, campaigns, media, observers, and others have documented multiple instances of additional irregularities. It is incumbent upon you, as commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, to investigate whether these documented irregularities constitute incompetence or intentional malfeasance and outright fraud.”

Here is AG Bondi’s full letter:

Sunday, 11/11/18 — 11:43 a.m.

The Broward County Keystone Cops continue to blunder forward with their astounding incompetence — this time, probably just gross unfitness for the job.

The county that has royally screwed up all of Florida in super tight Midterm elections through doses of ineptitude and probable corruption, did not get its simple machine count process under way until 11 a.m. today — four hours past their own extended goal because of a series of what are being called “glitches” in the counting machines.

Before starting the recount, the counting machines run a series of tests called “logic and accuracy” to ensure the 10 machines were starting from zero and recording ballots accurately. Well, they failed three times in a row, and apparently for different reasons while attorneys at officials for both parties got increasingly antsy.

So that’s just awesome.

Were these glitches in effect when the original counting was done? Who knows. Can we really trust the counts now? Who knows. It’s Broward, laughing stock of the country — unfortunately at a time of deadly seriousness.

Under Florida law, the state’s 67 counties have five days to recount about 8.2 million ballots that were cast over a month, culminating in Tuesday’s midterms. If a race result is found to be within 0.25 percent, then a manual recount must be done. No one wants to go through that. But it looks like it will be the case at least for the U.S. Senate seat, maybe more.

Saturday, 11/10/18 — 10:42 p.m.

While Miami-Dade is recounting its 813,000 ballots with the rest of Florida, triggered by the three races that were within 0.5 percent in the final tallies (sort of final because Broward is still part of the state) the ballots that Democratic activists were up in chants about at the Opa-locka mail sorting facility arrived at Miami-Dade’s elections office. There were 266 total and they will not be counted.

The reason is simple and legal: Florida law stipulates that only mail-in ballots that arrive by the time polls close at 7 p.m. on Election Day may be counted towards the election results. Miami-Dade received 15,000 mail-in ballots on Tuesday while voting was under way, and those were added to the county’s total of more than 813,000 votes. But all the ballots received after that will not. And that is a lot more than the activists got all fired up about at the mail facility.

And here were the last official numbers Saturday before the recount began:

Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis led Democrat Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum in the race for governor by 0.41 percent (33,684 votes). Republican Gov. Rick Scott led Democrat sen. Bill Nelson in the Senate race by 0.15 percent (12,562). Democrat Nikki Fried led Republican Matt Caldwell in the agriculture commissioner race by 0.18 percent (5,326 votes).

Saturday, 11/10/18 — 6:09 p.m.

On election day, Democrat Nikki Fried lost in a very close race to Republican Matt Caldwell for the Florida Cabinet office of agriculture commissioner. But after Broward’s rounds of late — illegally late — vote tallies, she is now ahead by 5,326 votes,

So in a display of dizzying chutzpah, she has claimed victory and started working on a transition team — before the recount…in a race where she is ahead by six-one-hundredths of one percent (0.06). That’s a problem for a few reasons. Of course the closeness, but also the reality that the most recent tallies do not include the overseas votes, which are primarily military and those tend to skew heavily Republican.

Now the mischief in Broward may still cancel those out, but it’s worth noting that all things being equal at this point, the likelihood of her not losing votes in the recount including military ballots is thin.

Saturday, 11/10/18 — 5:55 p.m.

The official recount is underway, and we’ll see if the re-writing of Florida’s election laws after the disastrous 2000 presidential election has created the smoother process that was promised.

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner called for automatic machine recounts in races for U.S. Senate, governor and agriculture commissioner this afternoon after receiving unofficial vote counts.

This was mandatory. Statewide contests decided by less than a half a percentage point must go through a machine recount — everything is fed back through the machines. This is the case for the races between Gov. Rick Scott and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson; Congressman Ron DeSantis and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum; and Matt Caldwell and Nikki Fried.

If after this, the vote is less than one-quarter of one percentage point, then by law the vote must go to a manual recount, which opens the door for the incompetence and mischief of Broward and Pam Beach counties. It looks like the Scott-Nelson race will likely qualify for that.

Saturday, 11/10/18 — 10:25 a.m.

The recount drama has now expanded to the the U.S. Postal Service.

The USPS is investigating its handling of absentee ballots mailed through a sorting facility in Opa-locka — which is located in Miami-Dade County, just south of Broward County — to “verify that all ballots have been handled in accordance to USPS service standards.”

A group of liberal activists protested outside the federal building, claiming possible voter suppression and sharing photographs they claimed showed scores of uncounted ballots sitting inside the facility’s mail room, according to the Miami Herald.

“At this time, we have no information to suggest any ballots were not properly handled and provided to local election officials, per our established process,” said Debra J. Fetterly, a USPS spokesperson with the South Florida District.

“What we are demanding is some transparency,” said Caroline Thompson of the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization. “Voters deserve to know if their ballots are sitting in a mailing facility.”

But apparently these were ballots that were postmarked after Election Day, and thus not legally eligible to be counted. Democratic Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, whose district includes Opa-locka facility, confirmed that postal officials told her the ballots left behind were postmarked after Nov. 6 — Election Day.

According to the Florida Division of Elections, absentee ballots must be received by the Supervisor of Elections office no later than 7 p.m. on Election Day. A 10-day extension is offered only for overseas voters, primarily members of the military.

Friday, 11/09/18 — 8 p.m.

Gov. Rick Scott has won the first round in the process battle.

In Palm Beach County, a Circuit Court Judge granted the Scott team’s request for an injunction and ordered the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections to submit “overvoted” and “undervoted” absentee ballots to the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board for an open and public review of each vote before they are counted.

In Broward County, a judge ordered Broward County Supervisor of ElectionsBrenda Snipes to allow immediate inspection of voter records after an emergency hearing prompted by Scott’s legal team. The Judge said the Supervisor must allow inspections by 7 p.m. Friday evening.

And another lawsuit has been filed by Rep. Matt Caldwell, the Republican candidate for commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, who had apparently won on election night but now is behind.

Caldwell’s lawsuit asks the court to determine if Snipes, the Broward County supervisor of elections, “illegally included ballots after polls closed” Nov. 6. His campaign also filed a public records request for all vote count communications and emails between Snipes, her team and anyone else regarding ballot counting.

And hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Broward County elections headquarters, calling for Snipes to be locked up. Snipes office called Lauderhill police to provide protection, although it was not clear such a step was necessary.

Friday, 11/09/18 — 12:30 p.m. Original Story

Well, Broward and Palm Beach counties have screwed up another national election. It cannot be emphasized enough that these are the two most heavily Democratic counties in Florida, and before this election, they were known for incompetence and, particularly in Broward, for corruption.

So those of us who have lived in Florida a long time recognize this pattern of recount corruption. Nonetheless, this time we have a Governor who will come out firing and already has filed a lawsuit against Broward and directed the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the county elections office. And it goes without saying, yet we will say, we have a President who is more than willing to enter the fray and fight back.

Neither of these leaders existed in the infamous 2000 Florida presidential recount, which absolutely would have eventually gone to Al Gore if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stepped in and said, “Enough!” Remember, Palm Beach was the “hanging chads” county and they would have continued to keep “finding” more Democrat votes.

With that context in mind, The Revolutionary Act will be keeping a running update of the recount shenanigans that will have national implications.

Current Tallies

Republican Gov. Rick Scott leads Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in the U.S. Senate race by 0.18 percent, about 15,000 votes — down from the 70,000 on election night.

Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis leads Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.44 percent,, about 36,000 votes.

The Democratic voting “indiscretions” have already flipped one statewide Florida race to a Democrat. Nikki Fried now has a lead of 0.04 percent over Republican Matt Caldwell for the Cabinet post of agriculture commissioner. That’s 2,915 votes. But we all know it will only grow for the Democrat. Caldwell had won that race on election night.

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Gov. Rick Scott

Scott has accused Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes and Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher of trying to steal the election — and not without merit.

Snipes has a long and well reported history of violating election laws, the last time being when she destroyed ballots too soon in the re-election of Debbie Wasserman-Schulze in 2016. Scott has ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate Snipes.

Scott has the authority to suspend Snipes and/or Bucher from office. To do so, he must cite evidence of malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty or incompetence. It seems there is prima facia evidence for incompetence. If he does that, he can then appoint an interim elections supervisor.

Scott has filed suit against Snipes, alleging noncompliance with Florida’s Public Records Act by not allowing the inspection of the ballots as required under law. “The allegations are part of what appears to be a broader array of inconsistencies in vote counting,” writes Julio Gonzalez at the Federalist Pages.

“It has been over 48 hours since the polls closed” and ballots are still being “found” in Broward and Palm Beach, Scott said. “The people of Florida deserve fairness and transparency” and Floridians should be very worried about “rampant fraud” in Tuesday’s elections.

Later in the evening, Scott announced the lawsuit: “I will not sit idly by while unethical liberals try to steal this election.”

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Sen. Marco Rubio

The Senator not known as a bomb-thrower has gone on a tear on the recount fiasco, and its refreshing. This is a little like when Sen. Lindsey Graham went off during the Judge Kavanaugh hearings. Even mild-mannered Republicans have really begun to have enough of what Democrats are doing and the anger and frustration is rising.

Rubio tweeted out a series of pieces of evidence that essentially makes the case that Snipes held back votes in some reserve method to pull out in case of a recount. It’s pretty incendiary, but also pretty compelling.

Here’s the full tweet storm:

“Long but IMPORTANT THREAT ON ELECTIONS IN #FLORIDA.



#BayCounty was hit by a Cat 4 Hurricane just 4 weeks ago,yet managed to count votes & submit timely results.



Yet over 41 hours after polls closed #Broward elections office is still counting votes?

#Broward supervisor:

– says she doesn’t know how many ballots are left to be counted; &

– Isn’t reporting hourly or regularly,but rather releasing thousands of additional votes,often in the overnight hours,that are chipping away at GOP leads

#Broward elections department has a history of violating the law:



A court found they improperly handled votes by mail:

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/08/13/judge-sides-with-florida-gop-in-absentee-ballot-dispute-with-broward-county-555553 …



Court found they destroyed ballots in 2016 in violation of state & federal law:

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/05/14/florida-to-monitor-broward-election-chief-after-judge-finds-unlawful-ballot-destruction-in-wasserman-schultz-race-415832 …

Now democrat lawyers are descending on #Florida. They have been very clear they aren’t here to make sure every vote is counted.



– They are here to change the results of election; &

– #Broward is where they plan to do it.



A U.S. Senate seat & a statewide cabinet officer are now potentially in the hands of an elections supervisor with a history of incompetence & of blatant violations of state & federal laws.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article220841135.html

#Broward election supervisors ongoing violation of #Florida law requiring timely reporting isn’t just annoying incompetence. It has opened the door for lawyers to come here & try to steal a seat in the U.S. Senate & Florida”

President Trump

Shortly after Scott announced his lawsuit, the President took to Twitter, condemning what he called a “big corruption scandal” brewing in Broward County, adding, “Florida voted for Rick Scott!”

Other State Leaders

Florida’s Republican House Speaker-designate Jose R. Oliva released this statement:

” I fully support and commend the Governor for directing FDLE to investigate. The power of the vote is only as strong as the trust in the count. With each new ballot ‘found’ that trust erodes.”

This is a long way from being resolved. Recounted ballots can be sent to the Florida Department of Elections beginning today (Friday.)

But if history is any guide, Broward and Palm Beach will keep “counting” long after today and keep finding more Democrat votes.

Rod Thomson is an author, TV talking head and former journalist, and is Founder of The Revolutionary Act. Rod is co-host of Right Talk America With Julio and Rod on the Salem Radio Network.

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