On Tuesday, news broke that in Palm Beach County, one of the two Florida counties that have been recalcitrant in reporting their voting tallies from the November election, ballot machines broke down. Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher, who played the race card against Florida governor Rick Scott earlier in the week, saying, “It is very unfortunate that some of the highest elected officials in our country are trying to disrupt our democracy because they don’t like the demographics of our voters,” said on Thursday that all early vote tallies in her county would have to be rerun, according to Terri Parker of WPBF.
As The Daily Wire reported, Parker reported that lawyers for Scott told Judge Krista Marx on Friday that Bucher’s staff was duplicating damaged ballots without the required witnesses present. Bucher’s lawyers argued that Bucher’s staff had each other as witnesses. Miller said Marx stated that she wasn’t sure that’s what “witnesses” meant, but said the counting was over so she let it go. Marx apparently found it a problem that Bucher’s staff did not forward ballots to the canvassing board to decide if they were under or over votes. Marx ordered Bucher to turn over the staff-rejected or decided ballots by 10 a.m. Saturday and to turn over a list of all provisional ballots to the Democratic Party by the end of the day Friday.
But late on Friday, Bucher said it was impossible for her to meet the 10 a.m. Saturday deadline imposed by Marx; she claimed the ballots on which her staff made decisions had already been mixed back in with all the regular ballots and it would be impossible to separate them out and still meet the state certification by Saturday. She asked Marx for reconsideration and an emergency hearing on Saturday.
Marx extended the deadline to noon but opined, “they’re not gonna meet it,” adding there had to be be “substantial compliance” with her order. On Saturday night, Bucher acknowledged that she didn’t make the noon deadline, insisting she would meet the deadline soon and arguing, “We have tried really hard to substantially comply.”