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Watch: Dem Party Attorney in FL Argues Destroying Ballots Isn't Fraud or Corruption

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There’s a record number of unfilled jobs in the United States right now, and I’d like to add one to the list: Broward County supervisor of elections.

Oh, there’s already a Broward County supervisor of elections, mind you. Her name is Brenda Snipes. She’s being sued by multiple entities, not the least of which is Florida Gov. Rick Scott. Scott, who’s involved in a race for senator in the Sunshine State with incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson, isn’t terribly impressed with how Snipes has been holding down the fort. Like, say, the fact that she doesn’t know how many people actually voted.

“On election night, Broward County said there were 634,000 votes cast. At 1 a.m. today, there were 695,700 ballots cast on Election Day,” Scott said Friday. “At 2:30 pm today, the number was up to 707,223 ballots cast on Election Day.

“And we just learned, that the number has increased to 712,840 ballots cast on Election Day.”

A Florida court also found that Snipes violated state law and the constitution by refusing to provide updates on the vote tally, according to National Review, and she’s also done other fun stuff like mixing together rejected and acceptable provisional ballots for reasons unbeknownst to neither God nor man (at least if one were to judge by Snipes’ mind-boggling reasons for doing so) and having members of her office find uncounted early ballots in places they very much should not be.

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This should be enough to get you removed from your position no matter what. The problem is that Snipes should have been removed from her position years ago. Earlier this year, a judge ruled that she had illegally destroyed ballots in a primary race between veteran Democrat apple-polisher Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and progressive challenger Tim Canova after everyone’s favorite former DNC chief barely eked by — at least by the standards of a marginally famous politician and establishment sycophant — with a 58 percent tally.

After that ruling, Scott said he would make sure that this wasn’t an issue going forward.

“During the upcoming election, the Department of State will send a Florida elections expert from the Division of Elections to Supervisor Snipes’ office to ensure that all laws are followed so the citizens of Broward County can have the efficient, properly run election they deserve,” Scott said at the time..

Well, glad he solved that problem. Although, according to the counsel for the Florida Democrats, it’s not even a problem at all.

Do you think Brenda Snipes deserves to lose her job?

On Saturday, conservative activist Laura Loomer talked to Leonard Samuels, counsel for the Florida Democratic Party and a member of the phalanx of lawyers that seems to have parachuted into Florida from the back of Democrat-chartered C-130s. She asked him about whether or not Snipes should be overseeing this process — given her history — and he didn’t seem to have any issue with it.

The interview came during a livestream inside the Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office (“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy…” as Obi-Wan Kenobi might say), where Samuels said there was no ethical concern involving Snipes overseeing this whole fire of the dumpster variety.

“Of course she should oversee it,” Samuels said. “She was appointed by a Republican governor, Gov. Jeb Bush, she’s been re-elected several times by the voters of Broward County, who made that (decision) having all the information possible on the ballot.

“There’s been not one iota of fraud. There’s been not one iota of corruption,” he continued.

“There has, though,” Loomer interjected. “The judge ruled that she destroyed ballots in the race between Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova … If you were an elections supervisor, shouldn’t destroying ballots be an automatic disqualification for overseeing elections?”

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“I don’t — I don’t qualify that as fraud or corruption,” Samuels said. “It was way, way after the election and Debbie Wasserman Schultz won that election.”

The encounter then degenerates into a fair amount of crosstalk, with Samuels insisting that there hasn’t been any corruption in the process this time around and then simply settling on the “no evidence of fraud or corruption” line.

Beyond whether or not there was any evidence of fraud or corruption — a judge certainly thought that Snipes shouldn’t have destroyed the ballots even though it was “way, way after the election.” That’s still illegal under Florida’s “sunshine laws,” by the way, and, according to the Sun-Sentinel, Canova had requested the ballots just months after the primary to look into alleged irregularities in the vote. (Although, if you’re a lawyer I guess you can certainly define what “way, way after” entails.)

Let’s look at some of the other stuff here.

Yes, Snipes was appointed by a Republican governor, and yes, Jeb(!) Bush still does qualify as a Republican. This was back in 2003, however, making this factoid wholly irrelevant — particularly since Snipes hasn’t exactly earned many gold stars for outstanding performance since then.

As for being elected “several times” by the voters, this doesn’t make anyone ethically prepared for the job. It just means they were good at getting re-elected, something that isn’t exactly a formidable task as an incumbent Democrat in Broward County.

I can name you a dozen members of Congress who have been sent back over and over again by voters despite being ethically challenged. (I’ll save you having to read my list because you can probably name 12 of your own.)

And, as for “all the information possible on the ballot,” most of that information began really coming out in the public sphere after the ruling earlier this year.

Has there been an iota of corruption or fraud during this election? We don’t know yet, although there certainly seems to be a whiff of it. In terms of the past, there’s no question that destroying ballots illegally is fraud, even if Snipes’ defense was ignorance.

Has there been an avalanche of ineptitude? Most certainly — and more than enough that the Broward County supervisor of elections position should be added to the 7 million job openings in the United States.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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