Voters Put Aside Politics, Show Up for Massive Protest at Broward Election HQ
With the outcome of multiple statewide elections still in the balance a week after Election Day, Florida’s Broward County has been the center of controversy amid recounts and allegations of voter fraud.
Protesters from both sides of the political spectrum have arrived outside of the county elections office on consecutive days to criticize the process.
With divergent goals and plenty of blame to go around, demonstrators held up signs showing their preferred candidates as they clamored for a more equitable and efficient electoral system.
Despite their obviously partisan differences, Mediaite reported that protesters holding signs for competing candidates shared a common chant.
“Every vote counts, every vote counts,” they repeated.
Video of the protest shared by MSNBC’s Ron Allen has been widely shared on social media since Saturday.
Outside the Broward County Election Office @NBCNews @MSNBC as Vote Totals go to the capital pic.twitter.com/sNZRE6iReC
— Ron Allen (@RonAllenNBC) November 10, 2018
Much of the rhetoric GOP protesters have used in response to Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes has come from the top, including public statements from President Donald Trump.
As The Hill reported, Trump said the federal government could get involved in a recount as the county holds the key to Senate and gubernatorial races currently being narrowly led by Republican candidates.
“If you look at Broward County, they have had a horrible history,” Trump said at a White House news conference last week.
Apparently referring to Snipes, he said an individual involved with the process “has had a horrible history, and all of the sudden they’re finding votes out of nowhere and (Senate candidate) Rick Scott, who won, you know it was close, who won by a comfortable margin, every couple of hours it goes down by a little bit.”
According to Independent Journal Review, Scott cited previous legal challenges to Snipes’ performance in a lawsuit he filed this week against the county.
Scott, who is currently serving as Florida’s governor, was joined in his criticism by Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, also a Republican.
On Saturday, Lopez-Cantera lamented the “unfortunate” situation he blamed on “such blatant irresponsibility from the Broward Supervisor of Elections.”
He went on to say that Floridians “expect that they should know how many ballots have been cast and for who on election night.”
Saying that the “state statutes provide” for such assurances, he claimed county officials “were in blatant violation of state statute.”
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