Following a contentious recount in Florida’s Broward County, Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes tendered her resignation on Sunday. According to reports, the resignation will take effect in early January.
The resignation comes as a flurry of vote fraud allegations and a federal investigation of possible voting irregularities in the county. Snipes, a Democrat, has been the Election Supervisor in Broward County since 2003, when she was appointed to the position by Jeb Bush. Snipes was initially named as a replacement to fill out a term but has since been reelected twice to the position.
Broward County has a long history of election problems dating back before Snipes was given the job. Initially, she was praised for cleaning up the process, but it wasn’t long before the problems began anew. Since her appointment, numerous allegations of impropriety in vote counting have arisen. Back in 2004, 58,000 absentee ballots were lost under Snipes’ supervision. In 2016, her office illegally destroyed more than 6,000 ballots after a judge ordered them to be preserved.
And then came the 2018 mid-terms.
First, Snipes’ office sent out sample ballots that did not resemble the ballots used on election day. It was argued that the ballot mix-up made the extremely close U.S. Senate race between Governor Rick Scott (R ) and Bill Nelson (D) more difficult for voters to find on the ballot on election day.
Then, several days after the election, Broward County was still counting votes long after all the other 66 counties in the state were done. While the process was ongoing, nobody in the office of Snipes updated the public on the situation.
President Trump weighed in on the issue, saying, “bad things are going on in Broward County.”
“It’s the Broward County brand that you’re talking about. I mean, to the rest of the world, this looks like chaotic incompetence,” said Broward County Commissioner Michael Udine.
“Every legitimate vote that was cast by somebody should be counted. It’s important to count all the votes. People expect their votes to be counted.”
But in a timely manner, right, Mr. Udine?
During the recount, Snipes reported that more than 2,000 ballots had somehow gone missing during the process. Snipes blamed the missing ballots on “misfiling” and repeatedly said the ballots “are in the building.”
“The ballots are in the building,” Snipes told reporters.
“There would be nowhere else for them to be,” Snipes reiterated.
And then, if matters were not bad enough, Snipes was then accused of purposely missing the deadline for submitting recount numbers when it was found that the new numbers didn’t help Bill Nelson, the Democrat running for senator. Broward’s recount numbers were submitted two minutes past the deadline so that they could not be used in the recount. The official count used Broward’s original results. Reportedly, Scott would have gained 779 votes had the recount numbers been used.
Broward County is the just the most visible and obvious example of voting irregularities in Florida. Palm Beach County found “dozens of precincts missing a significant number” of votes during the recount. County officials were forced to conclude that entire boxes of ballots were simply not counted.
Statewide, Florida Democrats organized an effort to allow voters who had submitted improper mail-in votes to amend those ballots after the state deadline for doing so had passed. Using an altered “cure avidavit” form, which extended the deadline from November 5 to November 8. Jennifer Kim, The Democrats’ central deputy field director, sent an e-mail to volunteers with the altered form that explained how to amend those improper votes.
Though Scott and Governor-elect Ron DeSantis ultimately survived the antics in Florida, the rampant vote fraud in Florida is not a victimless crime. Who knows how these shenanigans affected down ballot races? For instance, Matthew Caldwell, the Republican candidate for Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture. Election day results showed Caldwell ahead by 40,000 votes. Caldwell declared victory on election night.
Then, mysteriously, more votes started coming in — in, of all places, Broward County. After the final tally was in, Caldwell had lost by .06 percent.
Caldwell has filed suit against Snipes and Broward County but, as of now, he is on the outside looking in, a victim of the voter fraud that Democrats tell us does not exist.
Photo: AP Images
