Page 15 - Florida Sentinel 11-16-18

Political
Florida Recount Chugs Along As More Irregularities Surface
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Florida’s election recount is chugging along as more irregu- larities are uncovered and a judge asked the warring sides to “ramp down the rhetoric,” saying it erodes public confi- dence in the election for Senate and governor.
One county revealed Mon- day that it had allowed some hurricane-displaced voters to cast their ballots by email — a violation of state law. Another had to restart its recount after getting about a quarter finished because someone forgot to push a button. And in oft-criti- cized Broward County, addi- tional sheriff’s deputies were sent to guard ballots and voting machines, even though a judge said no Republican who has publicly alleged fraud in the county’s process — a list that includes President Donald Trump and Gov. Rick Scott — has presented any evidence to law enforcement.
“An honest vote count is no longer possible” in Florida, Trump declared Monday, without elaborating. He de- manded that the election night results — which showed the Republicans leading based upon incomplete ballot counts — be used to determine the winner.
Trump went on to allege that “new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many bal- lots are missing or forged” and that “ballots (are) massively in- fected.” It was unclear what he was referring to.
State law requires a ma- chine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 per- centage points. In the Senate race, Scott’s lead over incum- bent Democrat Bill Nelson was 0.14 percentage points. In the governor’s contest, unoffi- cial results showed Republican former Rep. Ron DeSantis ahead of Democratic Tallahas- see Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points.
Once the recount is com- plete, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 percentage points or less, a hand recount will be ordered. All 67 counties face a state-ordered deadline of Thursday to finish their re- counts.
Trump’s comments came just hours before Broward Chief Circuit Judge Jack Tuter held an emergency hearing on a request by Scott’s lawyers that deputies be put in charge of ballots and voting machines that aren’t being used until the recount is over.
An attorney for Election Su- pervisor Brenda Snipes de- scribed layers of security including keycard and pass-
word access to rooms where ballots are kept, secured by deputies and monitored by se- curity cameras and representa- tives of both campaigns and parties.
Scott’s lawyers had alleged in court documents that Snipes was engaging in “sus- pect and unlawful vote count- ing practices” that violate state law and that she might “destroy evidence of any errors, acci- dents or unlawful conduct.”
The judge said he could see no evidence of any violations, and said “I am urging because of the highly public nature of this case to ramp down the rhetoric.”
“If someone in this lawsuit or someone in this county has evidence of voter fraud or ir- regularities at the supervisor’s office, they should report it to their local law enforcement of- ficer,” Tuter said. “If the lawyers are aware of it, they should swear out an affidavit, but everything the lawyers are saying out there in front of the elections office is being beamed all over the country. We need to be careful of what we say. Words mean things these days.”
Scott’s motion was sup- ported by lawyers representing the state Republican Party and opposed by Snipes’ office, Nelson’s campaign and the state Democratic Party. After Tuter told all sides to meet to discuss a compromise, they agreed to add three deputies to the elections office.
Meanwhile, Elections Su- pervisor Mark Andersen in heavily Republican Bay County told the Miami Herald on Mon- day that he allowed about 150 people to cast ballots by email, which is illegal under state law. The county was devastated by a Category 4 hurricane in Octo- ber, and Scott ordered some special provisions for early vot- ing there.
Manatee County, south of Tampa Bay, had to restart its recount Monday because a needed button on the machine wasn’t pushed. The error was caught after about a quarter of the county’s nearly 165,000 votes had been recounted, said Michael Bennett, the county’s Republican elections supervisor. It shouldn’t affect the county’s ability to meet Thursday’s deadline
In A Victory For Stacey Abrams, A Federal Judge Extends Deadline In
Georgia’s Contested Governor’s Race
A week after voters headed to the polls in Georgia, a fed- eral judge is making sure that all the votes that were cast in the contentious governor’s race will be counted.
Georgia Northern District Court Judge Amy Toten- berg ruled in favor of a law- suit filed by the advocacy group Common Cause Geor- gia that was seeking an emer- gency injunction to ensure that “all provisional ballots cast by eligible registered vot- ers in the 2018 general elec- tion are properly counted.”
The group alleges that Re- publican candidate Brian Kemp, who continued to serve as Secretary of State overseeing his own election, failed to maintain the secu- rity of voter information de- spite known vulnerabilities leading up to the election.
STACEY ABRAMS
The lawsuit claimed that vot- ers who took steps to register and maintain their registra- tion may have arrived at the polls and were not permitted to cast a regular ballot.
According to WXIA, the
judge ruled that the state must establish a hotline for voters so they can check sta- tus of provisional ballot. Ad- ditionally, the state must conduct a thorough review of all provisional ballots cast and all information about provisional ballots must be made available to election su- perintendents.
The ruling prevents the current Secretary of State, Robyn Crittendon, from certifying the results of the election until this Friday at 5 p.m. The original deadline had been set for Tuesday.
Kemp has already de- clared himself the winner of the race and has since re- signed as secretary of state. Meanwhile, Stacey Abrams has vowed not to concede until every vote cast is counted.
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