On Tuesday, Senators Rick Scott (R-FL) and Mike Braun (R-IN) introduced three <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/21/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Rick+scott%22%5D%7D&amp;r=2&amp;s=7">amendments</a> to the United States Constitution that would term-limit congressmen, give the president line-item veto power, and require a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress to raise taxes.
The term limits portion of the &#8220;Make Washington Work plan,&#8221; or <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/21/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Rick+scott%22%5D%7D&amp;r=2&amp;s=7">S.J. Res. 21</a>, states in part:
<blockquote>
No person who has served 6 terms as a Representative shall be eligible for election to the House of Representatives. For purposes of this section, the election of a person to fill a vacancy in the House of Representatives shall be included as 1 term in determining the number of terms that such person has served as a Representative if the person fills the vacancy for more than 1 year&#8230;
No person who has served 2 terms as a Senator shall be eligible for election or appointment to the Senate. For purposes of this section, the election or appointment of a person to fill a vacancy in the Senate shall be included as 1 term in determining the number of terms that such person has served as a Senator if the person fills the vacancy for more than 3 years.
</blockquote>
According to the text, the proposed amendment would not count as term-limited any elected service prior to ratification.
The taxes and fees portion of the plan <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/21/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Rick+scott%22%5D%7D&amp;r=2&amp;s=7">states</a> in part:
<blockquote>
Legislation imposing or authorizing a new tax or fee may only be agreed to by a House of Congress if such legislation contains no other subject and is agreed to upon an affirmative vote of not less than two-thirds of the Members of such House of Congress, duly chosen and sworn&#8230;
Legislation raising any tax or fee, including any increase in a rate of tax or fee imposed on a percentage basis, any increase in an amount of a tax or fee imposed on a flat or fixed basis, or any decrease in or elimination of an exemption, waiver, credit, or deduction with respect to a tax or fee, may only be agreed to by a House of Congress if such legislation contains no other subject and is agreed to upon an affirmative vote of not less than two-thirds of the Members of such House of Congress, duly chosen and sworn.
</blockquote>
As for the line-item veto portion, the text <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/21/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Rick+scott%22%5D%7D&amp;r=2&amp;s=7">states</a> that under Article I, section 7 of the United States Constitution, the president &#8220;may reduce or disapprove any appropriation in any bill or joint resolution that is presented to&#8221; him.
In the 1998 case Clinton v. City of New York, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-7/clause-1%E2%80%933/the-line-item-veto">struck down</a> as unconstitutional the &#8220;Line Item Veto Act&#8221; that was passed by Congress two years earlier. However, as this would be itself a constitutional amendment and not a bill from Congress, this situation would be quite different.
On Thursday, The Daily Wire spoke with Sen. Scott about the proposed amendments:
<blockquote>
DW: What was your thought process on these proposed amendments?
SCOTT: We have term limits in Florida &#8211; eight years for the House and eight years for the Senate, and then two four-year terms for the statewide offices.
When I started the job as governor, we had a $4 billion budget deficit that year; the state had increased its debt every year for 20 years by over a billion dollars. In eight years, I paid off a third of the state debt, I think like two and a half billion dollars; I cut over ten billion dollars in taxes. We went from being in possible credit default and being downgraded to the highest credit rating in the country.
The things that I&#8217;m proposing, we already have in our state, which are working. I got a constitutional amendment on the ballot and passed my last year requiring a super-majority to raise taxes and fees; I believe I cut like 97 taxes and fees while I was governor; I had a line-item veto and I vetoed, I believe it was, about $2.5 billion.
[Sen. Scott added that when he was governor of Florida, he would go &#8220;line by line&#8221; through the budget, and veto what he considered irresponsible spending.]
DW: This is obviously the mirror for what you&#8217;re now proposing in the Senate. Can you walk through each of the amendments, and explain why you think we need them on the federal level?
SCOTT: On the requirement of the super-majority to raise taxes, if you think about it, what happens is, the easiest thing in a downturn is for people to say, &#8220;Well, let&#8217;s raise taxes.&#8221; I grew up in a very poor family; I lived in public housing growing up; I never met my dad; my mom had a very tough time. So, $25 or $50 here or there was devastating to them &#8211; and people act like it&#8217;s just a little bit of money. There&#8217;s conversation up here now about raising the gas tax. That is so regressive, and it impacts the poorest families so much. So, I think we ought to have to think long and hard about raising taxes.
As our economy grows, our tax revenues are growing. We don&#8217;t have a revenue problem in this country, but we have a spending problem. So let&#8217;s make it very difficult for people to raise our taxes and raise our fees.
As for term limits, our country was not set up for people to be career politicians. We brought people up for a period of their lives, they came and served, and they went home. That&#8217;s what we should have. We did in Florida, and we should be doing it up here.
The line-item veto, somebody&#8217;s got to be responsible ultimately for the budget, and the only person that can do at the state level is the governor. The only person that can do it at the federal level is the president. They were elected, you know, statewide as the governor, and countrywide as the president. Give them the ability to say, &#8220;You know what? That&#8217;s not a good return on investment.&#8221;
DW: Would Congress have the power to overrule any of those line-item vetoes?
SCOTT: The way it&#8217;s set up in Florida, they can do it with a two-thirds majority, so that would be the logical thing, is you give a line-item veto to the president, and then if it&#8217;s a two-thirds majority, [Congress would] be able to override.
DW: Let&#8217;s talk about the potential success of this. What are you doing, or what are you going to do, in order to make this successful?
SCOTT: Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve seen in my years as governor. You&#8217;ve got to get your ideas out there, you&#8217;ve got to drum up support, and then you take advantage [the] times where things are more interesting to people, and that&#8217;s what we did. I mean, I believed in the super-majority my entire time as governor, but my last year in office was a time that I thought I could get it done, and so I did it.
I look at my job up here as just chipping away every day and moving the ball down the court, and there will be a day, I don&#8217;t know whether it&#8217;s in six months or six years, that we can get these things accomplished.
</blockquote>
The Daily Wire would like to thank Sen. Scott for speaking with us about his proposed amendments.

Sen. Rick Scott Speaks With The Daily Wire About His Proposed Amendments On ‘Term Limits,’ Tax Hikes, And The ‘Line-Item Veto’

Republican Party

Rick Scott

Taxes

On Wednesday night, the eve of the one-year-anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were murdered, a senior aide to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/cuomo-adviser-deletes-tweet-mocking-sen-scott-for-school-shooting/">mocked</a> Sen. Rick Scott&#8217;s tweet comparing Florida to New York by tweeting, &#8220;Nice schools you got there.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Would just like to repeat &#8211; This is <a href="https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NYGovCuomo</a>&#8216;s top aide mocking <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenRickScott</a> over a school shooting.
He has since deleted the tweet. <a href="https://t.co/uxzvHe0jka">pic.twitter.com/uxzvHe0jka</a>
&#8212; Rusty Weiss(@rustyweiss74) <a href="https://twitter.com/rustyweiss74/status/1096006326172483585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The nasty remark, which was later deleted, came after Cuomo had reportedly bemoaned New York losing its population to Florida, <a href="https://miami.cbslocal.com/2019/02/08/south-florida-luxury-condos-being-scooped-up-by-relocating-new-yorkers-looking-to-save-on-taxes/">claiming</a> New Yorkers were moving to Florida to avoid paying higher taxes.
Scott responded on Twitter, &#8220;.<a href="https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo">&#8234;@NYGovCuomo</a> is blaming FL for NY&#8217;s population loss and budget shortfall. I say: guilty as charged.&#8221; He followed by putting check marks after &#8220;Lower taxes, Balanced budget, Job openings, and Better weather &amp; beaches,&#8221; then wrote &#8220;FL population&#8221; with an arrow pointing up and &#8220;NY population&#8221; with an arrow pointing down. Scott concluded, &#8220;Keep doing what you&#8217;re doing, Governor.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NYGovCuomo</a> is blaming FL for NY&#8217;s population loss and budget shortfall.
I say: guilty as charged.
Lower taxes 
Balanced budget 
Job openings 
Better weather &amp; beaches 
FL populationNY population
Keep doing what you&#8217;re doing, Governor. <a href="https://t.co/FEDZhrPaO6">https://t.co/FEDZhrPaO6</a>
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1095846386644500481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
According to <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education">U.S. News &amp; World Report</a>, Florida&#8217;s schools rank seventh in the nation; New York&#8217;s rank 23rd.
Scott had his own way to mark the one-year anniversary: he issued a series of tweets commemorating the victims of the massacre. He wrote: &#8220;On the 1-year anniversary of the tragedy in Parkland, we remember the 17 souls that were taken from us in a brutal act of violence. They were bright lights with bright futures &#8211; the kind of young men and women that made me proud to represent the state of Florida. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MSDStrong?src=hash">#MSDStrong</a>.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
On the 1-year anniversary of the tragedy in Parkland, we remember the 17 souls that were taken from us in a brutal act of violence. They were bright lights with bright futures &#8211; the kind of young men and women that made me proud to represent the state of Florida. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MSDStrong?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MSDStrong</a>
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096072831618744321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Alyssa Alhadeff, 14. A beloved daughter and dedicated soccer player at her school. Her mother Lori Alhadeff, now a Broward County School Board member, continues the fight to ensure our schools are safe.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Alyssa Alhadeff, 14. A beloved daughter and dedicated soccer player at her school. Her mother Lori Alhadeff, now a Broward County School Board member, continues the fight to ensure our schools are safe.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096074281195327488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Scott Beigel, 35. Scott, a geography teacher at MSD, risked his life to help students hide from the shooting. He is forever remembered as a hero.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Scott Beigel, 35. Scott, a geography teacher at MSD, risked his life to help students hide from the shooting. He is forever remembered as a hero.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096075491524661248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Martin Duque, 14. Martin was born in Mexico and moved to the U.S. with his family to live the American dream. He was a cadet in JROTC where he received many awards including the Medal of Heroism.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Martin Duque, 14. Martin was born in Mexico and moved to the U.S. with his family to live the American dream. He was a cadet in JROTC where he received many awards including the Medal of Heroism.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096076782221045760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Nicholas Dworet, 17. Nicholas was a senior and the captain of the school&#8217;s swim team. He enjoyed swimming competitively, and was planning to attend the University of Indianapolis. Eventually he wanted to swim in the 2020 Olympics in Sweden.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Nicholas Dworet, 17. Nicholas was a senior and the captain of the school&#8217;s swim team. He enjoyed swimming competitively, and was planning to attend the University of Indianapolis. Eventually he wanted to swim in the 2020 Olympics in Sweden.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096078089719812097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Coach Aaron Feis, 37, the assistant coach for the MSD Varsity football team. He died a hero, shielding a student from a bullet. We created the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program in his honor.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Coach Aaron Feis, 37, the assistant coach for the MSD Varsity football team. He died a hero, shielding a student from a bullet. We created the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program in his honor.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096079342071959552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Jaime Guttenberg, 14. A bright young girl and dancer. Jaime had a heart for those with disabilities. She was involved in many organizations such as Best Buddies and the Friendship initiative.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Jaime Guttenberg, 14. A bright young girl and dancer. Jaime had a heart for those with disabilities. She was involved in many organizations such as Best Buddies and the Friendship initiative.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096080650136940546?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Chris Hixon, 49. A loving father, veteran, athletic director and wrestling coach who had a huge impact on the lives of his students. His legacy lives on with the Chris Hixon Athletic Scholarship, which helps further the education of student-athletes.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Chris Hixon, 49. A loving father, veteran, athletic director and wrestling coach who had a huge impact on the lives of his students. His legacy lives on with the Chris Hixon Athletic Scholarship, which helps further the education of student-athletes.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096081871073697793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Luke Hoyer, 15. Luke loved basketball and chicken nuggets. His mom Gena was by my side when I signed the MSD High School Public Safety Act. Gena and her husband Tom are fighting for safe schools across the nation.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Luke Hoyer, 15. Luke loved basketball and chicken nuggets. His mom Gena was by my side when I signed the MSD High School Public Safety Act. Gena and her husband Tom are fighting for safe schools across the nation.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096083168766115840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Cara Loughran, 14. Cara was an incredible young lady who loved Irish dancing and was a part of the Drake School of Irish Dance in Coral Springs.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Cara Loughran, 14. Cara was an incredible young lady who loved Irish dancing and was a part of the Drake School of Irish Dance in Coral Springs.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096084376557944833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Gina Montalto, 14. Gina was a freshman and member of the winter guard team. Gina&#8217;s father Tony Montalto is the president of Stand with Parkland, an organization founded by all 17 victims&#8217; parents.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Gina Montalto, 14. Gina was a freshman and member of the winter guard team. Gina&#8217;s father Tony Montalto is the president of Stand with Parkland, an organization founded by all 17 victims&#8217; parents.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096085941410762752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Joaquin Oliver, 17. Known as &#8220;Guac&#8221; to friends and family, he loved sports and graffiti and was a beloved son to his parents.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Joaquin Oliver, 17. Known as &#8220;Guac&#8221; to friends and family, he loved sports and graffiti and was a beloved son to his parents.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096087129149583360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Alaina Petty, 14. Alaina had a servant&#8217;s heart. After Hurricane Irma, I met her family when they volunteered to help storm victims. Her father, <a href="https://twitter.com/rpetty">@rpetty</a> has been very involved in passing legislation for school safety and joined me in TLH to ensure it got done.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Alaina Petty, 14. Alaina had a servant&#8217;s heart. After Hurricane Irma, I met her family when they volunteered to help storm victims. Her father, <a href="https://twitter.com/rpetty?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@rpetty</a> has been very involved in passing legislation for school safety and joined me in TLH to ensure it got done.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096088498979946496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Meadow Pollack, 18. Meadow was an extremely smart young lady. Her father, <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewPollackFL">@AndrewPollackFL</a> and brother <a href="https://twitter.com/PollackHunter">@PollackHunter</a> have been partners in fighting to keep our schools safe. But more importantly, they both have become a great friend to me.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Meadow Pollack, 18. Meadow was an extremely smart young lady. Her father, <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewPollackFL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AndrewPollackFL</a> and brother <a href="https://twitter.com/PollackHunter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PollackHunter</a> have been partners in fighting to keep our schools safe. But more importantly, they both have become a great friend to me.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096089607798697987?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Helena Ramsay, 17. Helena was an incredibly smart young girl who participated in many school activities. She cared deeply about her community and other communities in FL. She went to Orl for a concert after the Pulse night club shooting to support the community.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Helena Ramsay, 17. Helena was an incredibly smart young girl who participated in many school activities. She cared deeply about her community and other communities in FL. She went to Orl for a concert after the Pulse night club shooting to support the community.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096091045778112518?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Alex Schachter, 14. Alex was a great young man and a talented trombone player in the MSD marching band. His father Max has been part of the MSD School Safety Commission and has been a powerful voice to prevent future tragedies.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Alex Schachter, 14. Alex was a great young man and a talented trombone player in the MSD marching band. His father Max has been part of the MSD School Safety Commission and has been a powerful voice to prevent future tragedies.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096092382976716803?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Carmen Schentrup, 16. Carmen was a dedicated student who was driven to become a medical researcher and find a cure for ALS. Both her parents Philip &amp; April and her siblings Robert &amp; Evelyn are all focused on activism nationwide.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Carmen Schentrup, 16. Carmen was a dedicated student who was driven to become a medical researcher and find a cure for ALS. Both her parents Philip &amp; April and her siblings Robert &amp; Evelyn are all focused on activism nationwide.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096093669063569409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Today we remember Peter Wang, 15. Peter dreamed of being a soldier and was posthumously accepted to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Peter risked his life to save his classmates and was awarded with the Medal of Heroism award.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Today we remember Peter Wang, 15. Peter dreamed of being a soldier and was posthumously accepted to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Peter risked his life to save his classmates and was awarded with the Medal of Heroism award.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096094952541556736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Scott concluded, &#8220;Nothing we say can bring back the lives that were lost. Nothing we do can replace the angels of MSD High School that were taken from us too soon. But we must honor their memory every day. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MSDStrong?src=hash">#MSDStrong</a>.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Nothing we say can bring back the lives that were lost. Nothing we do can replace the angels of MSD High School that were taken from us too soon. But we must honor their memory every day. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MSDStrong?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MSDStrong</a>
&#8212; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1096096127328370688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>

Senior Aide To NY Governor Cuomo Taunts Florida About Their Schools On Eve Of Parkland Massacre

Andrew Cuomo

Parkland Shooting

After defending Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel for months against Republican criticism over his office&#8217;s failed handling of the horrific mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the left-leaning Sun Sentinel editorial board published a lengthy editorial Wednesday on &#8220;<a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-op-edit-broward-sheriff-scott-israel-20181225-story.html">the failed leadership of Broward Sheriff Scott Israel</a>&#8221; that explains why they now agree with Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis that Israel must go.
&#8220;It&#8217;s a big deal for a governor to remove an elected sheriff, especially if the governor is a Republican and the sheriff is the most powerful Democrat in Florida&#8217;s most Democratic county,&#8221; the Sun Sentinel editorial board states. But after reviewing a draft of the state commission&#8217;s report on the shooting, the editors have concluded that Israel simply cannot be allowed to stay in office.
&#8220;[A] community of our size is going to face another tragedy,&#8221; the editors conclude. &#8220;It&#8217;s just a matter of where and when. And if we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. Given Sheriff Israel&#8217;s failure to learn from history &#8212; and his failures during our community&#8217;s most horrific events &#8212; we now stand with those who believe he should be removed and replaced.&#8221;
The editors begin by underscoring that they have repeatedly defended Israel against criticism they believed to be premature, including in late February when Republicans called for Gov. Rick Scott to suspend him for incompetence and in April when the deputies&#8217; union voted no confidence in him &#8220;largely because of pay raises.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ve suggested all along that people hold their fire until more details are known,&#8221; they write. &#8220;But after seeing the damning details in the commission&#8217;s draft report &#8212; and Israel&#8217;s troubling testimony &#8212; we cannot encourage the governor-elect to wait and let voters decide the sheriff&#8217;s fate in 2020.&#8221;
After highlighting Israel&#8217;s progressive accomplishments, including supposedly lowering burglaries and violent crime and his promotion of left-wing policies, like keeping teachers unarmed and participating in LGBTQ pride parades, the board dismisses the claim that criticism against Israel is only motivated by his war on the NRA.
&#8220;Israel&#8217;s supporters say the only reason the sheriff finds himself in the political crosshairs is because he stood up to the NRA at a CNN Town Hall after the shooting, and had a terrible interview with CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper,&#8221; they write (formatting adjusted). &#8220;But that&#8217;s not it at all. The issue is public safety, the sheriff&#8217;s paramount duty. And on his two biggest tests &#8212; the mass <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/topic/crime-law-justice/crime/shootings/fort-lauderdale-airport-shooting-EVCAL00089-topic.html">shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport</a> and the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas &#8212; Israel has come up short. Worse, the sheriff fails to accept responsibility for things that have gone wrong, instead suggesting that things couldn&#8217;t have been better. If he fails to acknowledge that mistakes were made &#8212; not only by individuals, but by his command &#8212; how can we expect a better outcome next time?&#8221;
The board then walks through key findings of the report, including one of the most infamous moments of the Parkland massacre: when the school resource officer failed to act to protect students. Israel has tried to keep the blame squarely aimed at the officer, but the Sun Sentinel stresses that the resource officer&#8217;s failure to respond was part of a much larger problem that ultimately falls on the sheriff&#8217;s shoulders:
<blockquote>
After the Stoneman Douglas shooting, the sheriff argued that a general can&#8217;t be blamed if a single soldier fails to do his job. He was referring to School Resource Officer Scot Peterson, who failed to pursue the shooter after reporting &#8220;shots fired.&#8221; The commission&#8217;s report says Peterson waited 45 minutes to enter the school and warned others to stay away, too.
But Peterson was not alone. While a great many BSO deputies demonstrated bravery that day, far too many showed cowardice, hiding behind trees, cars and walls.
Besides Peterson, seven other deputies also heard the gunfire and failed to pursue the shooter, as best practices would dictate. During interviews with investigators, several noted BSO policy says they could pursue a shooter, but don&#8217;t have to.
Israel should be mortified to know a team of <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/topic/south-florida/coral-springs-SFL00006-topic.html">Coral Springs</a> police officers blew by his deputies and entered the building where [the shooter, named redacted] had unleashed hell. A Sunrise police officer who raced to the scene said a BSO deputy told him: &#8220;Don&#8217;t go in.&#8221;
</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-op-edit-broward-sheriff-scott-israel-20181225-story.html">Read the Sun Sentinel editorial here</a>.

Sun Sentinel: Here’s Why We Now Agree With Republicans That Broward Sheriff Scott Israel Should Be Removed

Education

Florida

Law Enforcement

Ron DeSantis

Broward County&#8217;s supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, has &#8220;withdrawn her resignation,&#8221; <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/419312-snipes-rescinds-resignation-after-scott-moves-to-immediately-suspend-her">the Hill reports</a>, after Florida Governor Rick Scott threatened to cut off her pension.
Snipes, who presided over an utterly embarrassing recount effort in Broward County following the 2018 midterm elections, told reporters on Saturday, through her attorney, that she refuses to be shamed by Scott and would not simply leave office quietly.
&#8220;Dr. Snipes hereby rescinds her resignation,&#8221; attorney Burnadette Norris-Weeks told media, adding that the governor&#8217;s efforts to remove Snipes from office before January were nothing more than an attempt to &#8220;tarnish [Snipes&#8217;s] record.&#8221;
Snipes will be &#8220;fighting this to the very end,&#8221; Norris-Weeks said.
Snipes officially resigned her position after the Broward Country recount was completed, and after days of errors and missteps that saw Broward lag far behind neighboring counties in handling ballot issues (Snipes&#8217;s team, even, at one point, lost more than 2,000 ballots, with hours remaining until the election results had to be certified). She would have remained in office until January, and would have been eligible for a $170,000 state pension.
But Governor Rick Scott announced late last week that Snipes was overstaying her welcome, and Scott officially removed her from office, appointing a Republican supervisor of elections to take over immediately.
&#8220;Every eligible voter in Florida deserves their vote to be counted and should have confidence in Florida&#8217;s elections process,&#8221; Scott said in a statement about his actions last week.
&#8220;After a series of inexcusable actions, it&#8217;s clear that there needs to be an immediate change in Broward County and taxpayers should no longer be burdened by paying a salary for a Supervisor of Elections who has already announced resignation,&#8221; Scott added.
That turned out to be a bad deal for Snipes, who is now refusing to leave office unless she is removed by the state of Florida. Her current term isn&#8217;t scheduled to end until the 2020 election year.
In a separate statement at a press conference held Saturday, Snipes accused Scott of being &#8220;vindictive&#8221; &#8212; even though Scott ultimately won the recount in Broward county and will now serve as Florida&#8217;s junior senator &#8212; and pledged to seek out transparency.
She urged the audience to &#8220;have an open mind about this whole process,&#8221; and claimed that &#8220;we have always done our work in an air of quality and integrity.&#8221;
Other Democrats piled on early Sunday, backing Snipes, <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/2/brenda-snipes-rescinds-resignation-broward-county-/">according to The Washington Times</a>.
&#8220;Cynthia Busch, chairman of the Broward County Democratic Party, questioned why Scott did not appoint someone from the community and appointed someone who is a &#8216;Republican Party stalwart,'&#8221; the Times reported. &#8220;Rep. Shevrin Jones, a Democrat from Broward, called the suspension a &#8216;play on his politics on his part.'&#8221;
The way forward may be easier than it looks, though. Snipes can be removed by state action, though Scott may leave any further movement to the Florida legislature rather than to his own office.

Broward County Election Official Brenda Snipes ‘UN-RESIGNS’ After Florida Gov Threatens To Revoke Her Pension

Voting Rights

After a brutal race for the Florida Governor&#8217;s mansion with an additional recount after election day, Democrat candidate Andrew Gillum officially conceded the race to Republican Ron DeSantis. But one may wonder how DeSantis managed to pull it off, considering that Gillum <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2018/governor/fl/florida_governor_desantis_vs_gillum-6518.html#polls">led</a> in most pre-election surveys, many by decent margins.
Despite the apparent pre-election lead for Gillum, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls/florida">polls</a> and <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article221439990.html">analysis</a> of the 2018 election show that Hispanic voters likely helped DeSantis clinch his victory over Gillum. The findings seem to confirm that Democrat attacks against DeSantis, accusing him of being <a href="https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/06/historic-florida-governor-election-mired-name-calling-racist-accusations-andrew-gillum-ron-desantis/1897717002/">a racist</a>, failed to galvanize Florida Hispanics.
According to an exit poll released by CNN, DeSantis earned 44% of the state&#8217;s Hispanic vote compared to 54% for Gillum. This 10-point margin was a 17-point improvement for the GOP, compared to 2016, when President Donald Trump lost Hispanic voters by 27 points, 35% to 62%, to Hillary Clinton. It was also a gain for Republicans compared to the last midterm election when Governor Rick Scott <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/2014/FL/governor/exitpoll">lost</a> Hispanics by 20 points in his re-election bid.
How did Republicans make inroads with Hispanics in Florida despite warnings from left-wing activists and the media that President Trump would alienate the rapidly growing demographic?
An analysis shared with the <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article221439990.html">Miami Herald</a> shows that DeSantis likely won 66% of the state&#8217;s Cuban American voters. The study looked at election results in 35 predominantly Cuban precincts in the suburbs of Miami-Dade County and found that the Republican gubernatorial nominee won twice the number of voters as his Democrat opponent, 66% to 33%. As the Herald notes, DeSantis&#8217; 33-point advantage among Cuban Americans was consistent with a Telemundo/Mason Dixon <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000166-cb4c-d7ac-abfe-ebcf677c0000">poll</a> published days before the election that showed him with a similar lead over Gillum.
In an interview with The Daily Wire, the study&#8217;s author, Giancarlo Sopo, a Miami-based communication strategist, who himself is an American of Cuban heritage, noted the important role that Hispanic voters played in DeSantis&#8217; success.
&#8220;DeSantis&#8217; win was the result of three factors,&#8221; said Sopo. &#8220;First, he maintained GOP strongholds in rural and exurban counties, and in doing so, won 60% of Florida&#8217;s white voters. Second, it appears that turnout among Hispanic Democrats was low this year, which is evidenced by the state&#8217;s three majority-Hispanic counties &#8212; Miami-Dade, Hendry, and Osceola &#8212; having had some of the lowest turnout levels in all of Florida. Last, but not least: the Cuban vote. Had DeSantis merely replicated Trump&#8217;s margins among Cuban American voters, we&#8217;d be talking about Governor-elect Gillum right now.&#8221;
While Republicans typically perform better with Cubans than other Hispanics, Pew Research noted in 2014 that this constituency had been <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/24/after-decades-of-gop-support-cubans-shifting-toward-the-democratic-party/">trending toward</a> the Democrat Party in recent elections. About <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/15/unlike-other-latinos-about-half-of-cuban-voters-in-florida-backed-trump/">half</a> of Cuban voters backed Trump in 2016, compared to over 80% going for George W. Bush in 2000. Sopo estimates that by building upon Trump&#8217;s share of the Cuban vote, DeSantis added approximately 79,000 votes to his statewide victory margin, which currently stands at just 33,000 votes.
Census figures show that Cuban Americans account for 6.5% of Florida&#8217;s population and are estimated to be approximately 6% of the state&#8217;s voters. With fewer young voters &#8212; who tend to be more liberal &#8212; showing up to vote, the Cuban American vote, and by extension the Hispanic electorate, performed more Republican than it has recently. This is confirmed by a November 2 Miami New Times article that <a href="https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/floridas-young-people-are-not-voting-as-expected-and-democrats-trail-in-early-voting-10877329">noted</a> young voters in Florida were voting in lower numbers relative to their share of the electorate.
&#8220;According to an analysis by University of Florida political scientist Daniel A. Smith, voters between the ages of 18 and 29 have cast just 6 percent of the ballots to date, despite making up 17 percent of the state&#8217;s electorate.&#8221;
Lagging turnout among non-Cuban Hispanics, who typically vote Democrat, may have also hurt Gillum. Despite comprising 16.4% of Florida&#8217;s registered voters, Hispanics were just <a href="http://steveschale.com/blog/2018/11/6/like-the-jaguars-season-the-election-is-nearly-over.html">13% of the electorate</a> this year during early and absentee voting, according to an Election Day memo by veteran political strategist Steve Schale.
Florida Democrats voiced concerns about their standing with the state&#8217;s Hispanic voters throughout the election. An August 2018 Politico story <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/08/14/nelsons-narrow-lead-with-florida-latinos-worries-democrats-556698">noted</a> that at least one statewide Democrat, Senator Bill Nelson, was only winning by seven percentage points among Puerto Ricans, a demographic group that tends to lean left.
It is also possible that Gillum, who campaigned with Senator Bernie Sanders during the primary, may have been too extreme for Florida voters. Forty-six percent of them told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls/florida">pollsters</a> that Gillum&#8217;s policies were &#8220;too liberal.&#8221;
&#8220;The message that Gillum is a socialist worked,&#8221; <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article221439990.html">said</a> Florida International University political analyst Eduardo Gamarra to El Nuevo Herald. In a state with large numbers of Cuban and Venezuelan immigrants who fled leftist dictatorships, it&#8217;s easy to see why Florida voters, including many Hispanics, were turned-off by a gubernatorial candidate who <a href="http://floridapolitics.com/archives/271410-andrew-gillum-questions-about-being-a-democratic-socialist-are-fair-game">refused</a> to clarify whether he was a socialist throughout the primary.
Gillum even accepted an <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Ocasio2018/posts/congratulations-andrew-gillumthe-progressive-movement-is-transforming-the-countr/1825557417534934/">endorsement</a> from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the congresswomen-elect in New York and member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a radical Marxist group that <a href="https://www.dsausa.org/statements/sanctions_against_venezuela/">supports</a> the Venezuelan government and has called for nationalizing industries and <a href="https://radio.foxnews.com/2018/08/09/democratic-socialists-eliminate-private-ownership-and-nationalize-healthcare/">eliminating</a> private ownership of property in the United States.
&#8220;Interestingly, Democrats have had a harder time winning in Florida as the state&#8217;s Hispanic population is growing, which defies conventional political wisdom,&#8221; added Sopo, noting that the party&#8217;s shift to the left at a national level could be hurting it with the state&#8217;s Hispanic voters.
The politics of a national Democratic Party that is increasingly progressive may be incongruent with the nuances of Florida politics. For instance, in much of Latin America, the word &#8220;progresista&#8221; is often associated with the kinds of governments and political movements that many of the state&#8217;s Hispanic voters fled. When you combine a Hispanic voting bloc that is at least somewhat skeptical of progressivism with an electorate that is older, more rural, and leans conservative in midterm elections, it&#8217;s no surprise that Republicans have dominated the state for 20 years.
DeSantis&#8217; victory in Florida may provide Republican candidates across the country with a blueprint for how to reach Hispanics: Run as a conservative, emphasize sound economic principles and remind them that the progressive Left supports the kinds of policies that caused them and their families to leave their countries and come to America.
Not only did DeSantis not have to compromise his conservative values to make inroads with Hispanics, he ran with a Hispanic running-mate, Representative Jeannette Nuñez, who championed them. In doing so, Nuñez became the first Latina ever elected as Lieutenant Governor in Florida and undoubtedly helped energize Hispanics for the GOP on the campaign trail.
Conservatives should also remember that just because someone happens to be Hispanic, that doesn&#8217;t mean they <a href="http://www.fairus.org/press-releases/exit-polling-data-refutes-claims-hispanic-voters-punish-candidates-who-support">support</a> the Left&#8217;s vision of open borders or cultural Marxism. In fact, just like other ethnic groups, Hispanics are attracted to the American dream of liberty and opportunity, and that clearly showed here.
The sooner Republicans learn that they can&#8217;t play the Left&#8217;s game and balkanize the population for their own ends, the better. The Left panders and will always pander better than the Right. So why not just run on the American values you stand for?

How The Republicans Won Florida

Andrew Gillum

Bill Nelson

Florida Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott has defeated Democratic Senator Bill Nelson after a manual recount put Scott ahead by approximately 10,000 votes.
&#8220;Barring any further legal challenges from the Nelson campaign, the outgoing governor will become Florida&#8217;s junior senator in January, joining fellow Republican Marco Rubio in the Senate,&#8221; <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/18/florida-recount-sunday-update-rick-scott-bill-nelson/2048541002/">USA Today</a> reported on Sunday. &#8220;It will be the first time since Reconstruction that the state has had two GOP senators.&#8221;
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And the press release just came.
Gov. Rick Scott will be Florida&#8217;s next US Senator and is a certified Democratic giant-killer, beating these 3 in a row when many Democrats said he couldn&#8217;t
1) Alex Sink in 2010
2) former Gov Charlie Crist in 2014
3) Sen Bill Nelson in 2018 <a href="https://t.co/WhLNTSKKxf">pic.twitter.com/WhLNTSKKxf</a>
&#8212; Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarcACaputo/status/1064235311444762624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Scott announced that Nelson conceded the race, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/18/politics/bill-nelson-rick-scott-florida-recount-result/index.html">saying</a> in a statement: &#8220;I just spoke with Senator Bill Nelson, who graciously conceded, and I thanked him for his years of public service.&#8221;
The results of the manual recount put Scott ahead by 10,033 votes over Nelson, who had served for three terms as a U.S. senator.
USA Today noted that this &#8220;will be the first time since Reconstruction that the state has had two GOP senators.&#8221;

This is a breaking news story, refresh the page for updates.

Rick Scott Defeats Bill Nelson In Florida Senate Race After Manual Recount

Democrat Andrew Gillum conceded the Florida gubernatorial race &#8220;for a second and final time&#8221; Saturday night, <a href="https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/11/17/andrew-gillum-concedes-florida-governors-race-second-time/2041301002/">Tallahassee.com reports</a>, signaling the end of an extended recount.
Gillum and fellow Democrat, Bill Nelson, who is running for his own long-held Senate seat against Florida&#8217;s current Republican governor Rick Scott, have been in election limbo for more than a week as Florida first proceeded to an electronic recount in both races, and then to a hand recount.
After results were finally certified Saturday, both Scott and DeSantis were clear winners, but so far only Gillum has admitted there&#8217;s no way he can prevail over his Republican opponent.
Gillum conceded in a video posted to social media, thanking supporters and acknowledging DeSantis as the state&#8217;s next governor.
&#8220;R. Jai [Gillum&#8217;s wife] and I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Mr. DeSantis on becoming the next governor of the great state of Florida,&#8221; Gillum said.
&#8220;We also want you to know that even though this election may be beyond us, that this &#8211; although nobody wanted to be governor more than me &#8211; this was not just about an election cycle,&#8221; he added. &#8220;This was about creating the kind of change in this state that really allows for the voices of everyday people to show up again in our government, our state, and our communities.&#8221;
DeSantis responded, &#8220;This was a hard-fought campaign. Now it&#8217;s time to bring Florida together.&#8221;
Tallahasse.com reports that more than 8 million ballots were recounted in the gubernatorial race statewide, but that Gillum&#8217;s deficit was simply insurmountable. DeSantis won 4,075,445 to 4,041,762.
All eyes, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/18/politics/florida-recount-comes-to-an-end/index.html">CNN reports</a>, are now on Bill Nelson, who still has not acquiesced in his recount efforts. Nelson&#8217;s and Scott&#8217;s race went to a machine recount a week ago, at the same time Gillum&#8217;s and DeSantis&#8217; did, and even though Scott picked up votes in the machine recount, bringing his lead to more than 12,000 ballots, the race still fell within the margin of error necessary to conduct a hand recount.
Results from the hand recount are expected to be certified on Sunday, no later than noon EST. CNN predicts that &#8220;[f]acing an insurmountable vote gap with Scott, Sunday&#8217;s deadline will bring an end to Nelson&#8217;s bid, barring further legal maneuvering.&#8221;
A Democratic strategist close to the operation <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/11/16/nelson-has-no-path-democrats-admit-scott-beats-florida-icon-702880">told Politico Sunday</a> that Nelson has &#8220;no path forward&#8221;: &#8220;It&#8217;s done. But it was done before today. This was a total Hail Mary.&#8221;
Nelson&#8217;s loss should have been clear by now, but Florida&#8217;s Broward County &#8212; now notorious for a string of election recount disasters this week &#8212; <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-broward-manual-recount-agriculture-commissioner-20181117-story.html">&#8220;lost&#8221; more than 2,000 ballots</a> &#8220;somewhere in the building&#8221; on Saturday.
&#8220;Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes said they either misplaced, misfiled or mixed in with another stack,&#8221; the Broward County&#8217;s Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported. At 8 p.m. Saturday night, Broward gave up the search and resumed the hand recount Sunday morning.

Andrew Gillum Concedes AGAIN As Florida Recount Draws To A Close But Bill Nelson Has Yet To Admit Defeat

Democratic Party

According to reports from Broward County, after election officials failed to submit the results of the machine recount in time &#8212; which showed Republicans&#8217; vote margins <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38443/broward-county-completes-recount-showing-james-barrett">increasing</a> &#8212; thus nullifying them, they managed to get through the hand recount much more quickly than Democrats hoped they would.
Mother Jones&#8217; <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/in-critical-broward-county-hopes-for-bill-nelson-fade-as-hand-recount-begins/">Pema Levy</a>, who has been tracking the developments in Broward and Palm Beach, reported Friday that the hand recount had already wrapped up, and incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson &#8220;didn&#8217;t come close&#8221; to making up the votes he needed to try to catch up with Republican Rick Scott.
&#8220;The hand recount in Broward is over for the Senate race,&#8221; Levy tweeted. &#8220;It was a blur it went so fast. Looks like Nelson didn&#8217;t come close to making up the ground he needs.&#8221;
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The hand recount in Broward is over for the Senate race. It was a blur it went so fast. Looks like Nelson didn&#8217;t come close to making up the ground he needs. <a href="https://t.co/JNYAGpmSNk">https://t.co/JNYAGpmSNk</a>
&#8212; Pema Levy (@pemalevy) <a href="https://twitter.com/pemalevy/status/1063452048384016384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2018</a></blockquote>
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In a piece for <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/in-critical-broward-county-hopes-for-bill-nelson-fade-as-hand-recount-begins/">Mother Jones</a>, Levy gave some more details on Nelson&#8217;s rapidly fading hopes of winning re-election in what had quickly become apparent was going to be a &#8220;bad day&#8221; for Democrats. &#8220;As the hand recount in Florida&#8217;s contentious Senate election got underway in Broward County, it quickly became clear that Democrats were headed for a bad day,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;This is the county where incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson needed to net thousands of new votes on Friday. But minutes into the recount, that became unlikely.&#8221;
Heading into the recounts, Republican Rick Scott led Nelson by 12,536 votes. Nelson&#8217;s hopes of defying historical precedent and making up all those votes rested in the Democrat strongholds of Broward County and Palm Beach County. In Broward, tens of thousands of ballots contained no votes in the Senate race, which Democrats were hoping a hand recount would find to have been incorrectly read by the machines and would heavily favor Democrats.
But when officials burned through the ballots quickly Friday morning, it became clear that what Republicans had been saying all along was the case: People had simply failed to vote on that race for whatever reason.
If anyone&#8217;s to blame, as Levy notes, &#8220;It&#8217;s likely ballot design that put a significant dent in Nelson&#8217;s vote totals here in Broward County, and may have cost him the race.&#8221; Many have noted that the Senate race was listed right underneath the instructions for the ballot, and some voters probably just didn&#8217;t see it, and didn&#8217;t notice that they hadn&#8217;t voted on the big Senate race to go back and double-check. And who was in charge of that ballot design? Democrat elections supervisor Brenda Snipes&#8217; office.
Another possible reason for the Senate no vote is simply that some Democrat voters, while enthused about voting for Andrew Gillum &#8212; who trails Republican Ron DeSenatis by an even larger margin (over 33,000 votes) &#8212; were not exciting about making sure Nelson got to keep his seat for six more years.
As for the hand recount in Palm Beach, Levy reports that a similar situation might play out. &#8220;Word here is they have about 5k ballots to check and that it will take less than 2 hours,&#8221; she <a href="https://twitter.com/pemalevy/status/1063479510212009986?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1063479510212009986&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2F38445%2Fbroward-county-hand-recount-wraps-more-quickly-james-barrett">tweeted</a> just after noon.
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Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38429/rubio-no-evidence-election-fraud-look-what-we-just-james-barrett">Rubio: No Evidence Of Election Fraud? Look What We Just Learned Democrats Did In Florida</a>

Broward County Hand Recount Wraps Up More Quickly Than Expected, And It’s ‘Bad News’ For Democrats

Oops.
Despite completing the machine recount in time, the office of embattled Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes missed the deadline for submitting its new results by just a few minutes Thursday, which happened to give both Republican candidates Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis even larger vote margins over their Democratic opponents.
&#8220;With just 15 minutes to go before Thursday&#8217;s deadline, Broward County finally finished recounting every vote,&#8221; the <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article221709445.html">Miami Herald</a> reports. &#8220;At least, that&#8217;s what officials told reporters and the canvassing board at 2:45 p.m. In a surprise announcement at nearly 6 p.m., Broward&#8217;s director of elections planning, Joseph D&#8217;Alessandro, told the canvassing board the county actually turned in results to the state two minutes late. They won&#8217;t count officially.&#8221;
&#8220;Basically I just worked my ass off for nothing,&#8221; D&#8217;Alessandro said. &#8220;What caused it was my unfamiliarity with their website.&#8221;
Since the office failed to submit them in time, the original results will stand.
So what did those now nullified machine recounts find? Democrats lost about 1,300 ballots, while Republicans lost about 600. In other words, the recount benefited both Republicans. In the case of Scott&#8217;s contest against Bill Nelson, Scott came out 779 votes ahead in comparison to the initial count.
They found a discrepancy of 2,040 votes due to &#8220;a commingling of ballots,&#8221; said D&#8217;Alessandro, who admitted, &#8220;We did not correctly handle the ballots.&#8221;
So, despite having actually completed them with 15 minutes to spare, Snipes&#8217; team says they weren&#8217;t able to properly submit them, wiping out all of that work they had just done &#8212; and the Republicans&#8217; gains. As the Herald notes, that suspicious sequence of events prompted Scott senior campaign advisor Brad Todd to suggest to MSNBC that the &#8220;error&#8221; was maybe not an error at all.
The manual recount in Broward has reportedly also wrapped up, and much more quickly than the Democrats hoped it would. Mother Jones&#8217; Pema Levy has been on the scene tracking the developments and has some bad news for Democrats.
&#8220;The hand recount in Broward is over for the Senate race,&#8221; she reported Friday. &#8220;It was a blur it went so fast. Looks like Nelson didn&#8217;t come close to making up the ground he needs.&#8221;
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The hand recount in Broward is over for the Senate race. It was a blur it went so fast. Looks like Nelson didn&#8217;t come close to making up the ground he needs. <a href="https://t.co/JNYAGpmSNk">https://t.co/JNYAGpmSNk</a>
&#8212; Pema Levy (@pemalevy) <a href="https://twitter.com/pemalevy/status/1063452048384016384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2018</a></blockquote>
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The recount in Palm Beach County isn&#8217;t expected to take too long, either, which also isn&#8217;t a good sign for Democrats:
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Hello from Palm Beach County, where the hand recount is just getting underway. Word here is they have about 5k ballots to check and that it will take less than 2 hours. <a href="https://t.co/KCUDGcwvHC">pic.twitter.com/KCUDGcwvHC</a>
&#8212; Pema Levy (@pemalevy) <a href="https://twitter.com/pemalevy/status/1063479510212009986?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Heading into the recount, DeSantis and Scott led the races for governor and U.S. Senate by counts of <a href="https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/florida/">33,669 and 12,536</a>, respectively. According to the 26 elections that have experienced a recount in recent history, the chances of either result being overturned was effectively zero. Only three of those 26 recounts resulted in a reversal of who won the election, but the average vote margin change was just <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38280/what-are-chances-recounts-will-swing-florida-james-barrett">311 votes</a>.
According to FairVote, between 2000 and 2016, 26 of the 4,687 statewide elections went to a recount, and the outcomes of only three reversed. &#8220;The 2004 Washington governor&#8217;s race, the 2006 Vermont state auditor&#8217;s race and the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race,&#8221; the <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article221506705.html">Miami Herald</a> reports. &#8220;The average swing in those three elections after the recounts? About 311 votes.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38429/rubio-no-evidence-election-fraud-look-what-we-just-james-barrett">Rubio: No Evidence Of Election Fraud? Look What We Just Learned Democrats Did In Florida</a>

Broward County Completes Recount Showing Republicans Gaining Votes, Then Fails to Submit Them In Time, Nullifying Recount

With the machine recounts finished &#8212; reportedly resulting in a <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/political-pulse/os-ne-florida-vote-recount-deadline-20181115-story.html">net gain</a> for Republican Rick Scott of 41 votes, putting him ahead of Bill Nelson by 12,603 votes, and a one-vote gain for Democrat Andrew Gillum, which leaves him still trailing Ron DeSantis by 33,683 votes &#8212; and the hand recounts underway, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio sounded the alarm over potential voter fraud by Democrat officials.
&#8220;No evidence of fraud in #FloridaElection?&#8221; wrote Rubio in a post Thursday. &#8220;Dems got voters to use altered forms to fix &amp; submit as many mail ballots as possible after FL deadline in hopes that a judge would later order state to count them. Today that&#8217;s exactly what a federal judge did.&#8221;
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No evidence of fraud in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FloridaElection?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FloridaElection</a>?
Dems got voters to use altered forms to fix &amp; submit as many mail ballots as possible after FL deadline in hopes that a judge would later order state to count them.
Today that&#8217;s exactly what a federal judge did. <a href="https://t.co/MC4Tlvy9gi">https://t.co/MC4Tlvy9gi</a>
&#8212; Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) <a href="https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1063171854997831683?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Rubio linked to a story by the <a href="https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/15/florida-recount-democrats-launch-plan-altered-state-form-fix-ballots/2009178002/">Naples Daily News</a>, which detailed an effort by Democrats to swing the election outcome by giving Democrat voters altered absentee ballots with the hopes of getting a judge to admit them. &#8220;A day after Florida&#8217;s election left top state races too close to call, a Democratic party leader directed staffers and volunteers to share altered election forms with voters to fix signature problems on absentee ballots after the state&#8217;s deadline,&#8221; the outlet reports.
The forms were discovered in Broward, Santa Rosa, Citrus and Okaloosa counties and reported to federal prosecutors for review for possible election fraud. USA Today obtained an email that &#8220;shows that Florida Democrats were organizing a broader statewide effort beyond those counties to give voters the altered forms to fix improper absentee ballots after the Nov. 5 deadline. Democratic party leaders provided staffers with copies of a form, known as a &#8216;<a data-track-label="inline|intext|n/a" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5130053-Altered-form-Affidavit-vote-by-mail-ballot-cure.html">cure affidavit</a>,&#8217; that had been modified to include an inaccurate Nov. 8 deadline.&#8221;
A Democratic activist in Palm Beach admitted that the goal was to have voters submit as many of these altered absentee ballots as possible after the election deadline with the hope of a judge admitting them. The Naples Daily News provides more details:
<blockquote>
An email that Jennifer Kim, Florida Democratic Party&#8217;s central deputy field director, sent Nov. 7 to party workers instructing them how to give voters an altered form to fix signature problems with their absentee ballots after the state deadline. Kim&#8217;s email shows this is a statewide effort to give voters the altered form with the wrong deadline to return it. The altered forms have turned up in several counties and have been turned over to federal prosecutors to review for possible election fraud.
U.S. Chief Judge Mark Walker ruled Thursday that voters should have until Saturday to correct signatures on ballots, a move that could open the door for these ballots returned with altered forms to be counted. Republicans supporting Gov. Rick Scott, who leads U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson by less than 13,000 votes in the recount, appealed the ruling.
</blockquote>
Rubio has been calling attention to the sketchy behavior of Broward and Palm Beach Counties for the last week, as more and more reports revealed questionable behavior by elections officials and a judge determined that both counties had violated Florida law in the counting process.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38162/rubio-heres-more-evidence-potential-voting-law-james-barrett">Rubio: Here&#8217;s More Evidence Of Potential Voting Law Violations In Broward County, FL</a>

Rubio: No Evidence Of Election Fraud? Look What We Just Learned Democrats Did In Florida

Marco Rubio

It&#8217;s looking more and more as if Republican Gov. &#8203;Rick Scott is on his way to victory in Florida over incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson; on Thursday, with the machine recount finished, the latest results of the recount in their race showed Scott <a href="http://floridapolitics.com/archives/281342-how-about-now-winning-first-recount-rick-scott-asks-again-for-bill-nelson-to-concede">gaining 865 votes</a> since last Sunday, according to Scott&#8217;s campaign.
That would swell Scott&#8217;s lead to 13,427 votes, and Scott went on Twitter to tell Nelson to admit he had lost.
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With the statewide machine recount finished, our margin of victory has increased by nearly 1000 votes. <a href="https://twitter.com/SenBillNelson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenBillNelson</a>, it&#8217;s time to admit this race is over.
&#8212; Rick Scott (@ScottforFlorida) <a href="https://twitter.com/ScottforFlorida/status/1063165720442425346?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Scott also released a statement:
<blockquote>
Last week, Florida voters elected me as their next U.S. Senator and now the ballots have been counted twice. I am incredibly proud and humbled by the opportunity to serve Florida in Washington. Our state needs to move forward. We need to put this election behind us, and it is time for Bill Nelson to respect the will of the voters and graciously bring this process to an end rather than proceed with yet another count of the votes &#8211; which will yield the same result, and bring more embarrassment to the state that we both love and have served.
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Nelson and his campaign had no comment. <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/15/rick-scott-declares-victory-after-florida-recount-/">The Washington Times</a> reported that Nelson sent out a fundraising email to supporters that read, &#8220;Has your signature changed over the years since you first registered to vote? Have a disability that affects your handwriting? Suffer from eyesight loss? Changed your last name? If you answered &#8216;yes&#8217; to any of the questions above, then you could be denied your right to vote and that&#8217;s why our legal challenge of this disenfranchisement law is so important.&#8221;
If the race between the two candidates results in a span of less than 0.25%, a manual recount will be executed, by dint of Florida state law. The 13,427 difference is below that margin.
Palm Beach County missed the 3 p.m. Thursday deadline for giving the results of its recount, which could return its results to pre-recount totals. As <a href="http://floridapolitics.com/archives/281294-palm-beach-recount-deadline">Florida Politics</a> reported, &#8220;Bucher&#8217;s office had been conducting the recount in the order the races appeared on the ballot. That is, they planned to complete the U.S. Senate recount first, followed by the Governor&#8217;s race, the Agriculture Commissioner contest, and then finishing with the HD 89 race. But the county failed to even complete the U.S. Senate recount by Thursday&#8217;s deadline.&#8221;
On Thursday, Nelson&#8217;s campaign <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election/florida-democrat-nelson-sues-state-to-force-hand-recount-of-ballots-idUSKCN1NK1ZH?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=topNews&amp;utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_source=twitter">sued Florida election officials</a> in order to force a hand recount in Palm Beach County. Nelson&#8217;s attorney, Marc Elias, stated, &#8220;We have sued Palm Beach County and the Florida Sec of State to require a hand count of all ballots in the county due to systematic machine failure during the machine recount.&#8221;
On Thursday, considering whether to extend the deadline in Palm Beach County, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/judge-calls-florida-laughing-stock-world-gives-voters-more-time-n936656?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma">ripped</a> Florida legislators and election officials, blasting that Florida is &#8220;the laughingstock of the world, election after election, and we chose not to fix this.&#8221;
Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak offered a witty comment on the ineptitude of Florida election officials:
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In order to save time, Florida election officials have announced that the 2020 recount will begin immediately.
&#8212; Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/1062749776419139586?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Rick Scott Reportedly Gaining Votes, Calls On Nelson To Give Up

While one of the two &#8220;Democrat stronghold&#8221; counties in Florida has managed to complete its machine recount ahead of the 3 p.m. deadline, some images and footage provided by a local outlet from the other problem-plagued county don&#8217;t encourage confidence that its going to get the job done.
Broward County managed to complete its recounts of some 700,000 votes overnight with several hours to spare before the big deadline Thursday. <a href="https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Broward-Finishes-Machine-Recount-of-2018-Election-Votes-Ahead-of-Thursday-Deadline-500571281.html?fbclid=IwAR3dQgRduBWZbJ4RHuasnGtr8HPSU7n806s29zsHINemC4AlONUbKDtBzlM">NBC 6</a> reports:
<blockquote>
After days of being in the national spotlight &#8211; and being criticized by everyone from candidates to protesters from both major political parties &#8211; Broward County completed their machine recount of votes for three offices in the 2018 election ahead of Thursday&#8217;s deadline.
Workers put the last ballots to be counted through machines at election headquarters in Lauderhill around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday night. Officials will spend the remaining time before the 3 p.m. deadline Thursday going through ballots that were mailed in or not able to be read by the machines.
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Meanwhile, Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes finds herself the subject of two court hearings Thursday after a judge ruled that she had violated Florida law in her handling of the process.
While the notoriously problematic Broward County wrapped up the recount in time, CBS 12 provided reason to worry that the Democrat-heavy Palm Beach won&#8217;t be able to say the same.
&#8220;Less than 12 hours until the #Florida #recount deadline&#8230;. no machines running here at Palm Beach County tabulation center. Where is everyone!?&#8221; reported CBS 12&#8217;s Kara Duffy.
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Less than 12 hours until the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Florida?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Florida</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/recount?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#recount</a> deadline&#8230;. no machines running here at Palm Beach County tabulation center. Where is everyone!? <a href="https://t.co/pLn3rvVO0y">pic.twitter.com/pLn3rvVO0y</a>
&#8212; Kara Duffy (@KaraDuffyCBS12) <a href="https://twitter.com/KaraDuffyCBS12/status/1062994424987312130?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2018</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Hours away from the #Florida #election #recount. Here at the Palm Beach County tabulation center&#8230; silence,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;Supervisor of Elections said: &#8216;We&#8217;re doing everything in our human power possible to make this happen.'&#8221;
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Hours away from the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Florida?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Florida</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/election?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#election</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/recount?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#recount</a>. Here at the Palm Beach County tabulation center&#8230; silence. Supervisor of Elections said: &#8220;We&#8217;re doing everything in our human power possible to make this happen.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/c0iicm9fl2">pic.twitter.com/c0iicm9fl2</a>
&#8212; Kara Duffy (@KaraDuffyCBS12) <a href="https://twitter.com/KaraDuffyCBS12/status/1063008491122626560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2018</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Hours away from the Florida #recount deadline&#8230; no workers in sight here at the Palm Beach County tabulation center? Where is everyone?&#8221; she reported later.
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Hours away from the Florida <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/recount?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#recount</a> deadline&#8230; no workers in sight here at the Palm Beach County tabulation center? Where is everyone? <a href="https://t.co/YKKB1GSFnc">pic.twitter.com/YKKB1GSFnc</a>
&#8212; Kara Duffy (@KaraDuffyCBS12) <a href="https://twitter.com/KaraDuffyCBS12/status/1063041775168831494?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Duffy was likewise on the scene Wednesday providing updates as the recount re-started, then stopped.
&#8220;RIGHT NOW: observers being seated at tabulation table. Looks like they&#8217;re gearing up to start recounting process at Palm Beach County center,&#8221; she tweeted. &#8220;Recount, redo! SOE says Palm Beach County #voting machines overheated (which explains the little/no activity yesterday) forcing another recount of about 175K early votes.&#8221;
&#8220;[M]achines back up &amp; running at #PalmBeachCounty tabulation center,&#8221; she posted later.
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RIGHT NOW: observers being seated at tabulation table. Looks like they&#8217;re gearing up to start recounting process at Palm Beach County center. <a href="https://t.co/vcyVCR3vLH">pic.twitter.com/vcyVCR3vLH</a>
&#8212; Kara Duffy (@KaraDuffyCBS12) <a href="https://twitter.com/KaraDuffyCBS12/status/1062359481647009799?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 13, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Recount, redo! SOE says Palm Beach County <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/voting?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#voting</a> machines overheated (which explains the little/no activity yesterday) forcing another recount of about 175K early votes. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MidtermElections2018?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MidtermElections2018</a> <a href="https://t.co/hx9I3X9nlM">pic.twitter.com/hx9I3X9nlM</a>
&#8212; Kara Duffy (@KaraDuffyCBS12) <a href="https://twitter.com/KaraDuffyCBS12/status/1062640552062185472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2018</a></blockquote>
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RIGHT NOW: machines back up &amp; running at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PalmBeachCounty?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PalmBeachCounty</a> tabulation center. This after some machines overheated. Supervisor said they lost day and a half worth of work due to issue. Must now redo, recount for about 175K early <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/votes?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#votes</a> <a href="https://t.co/VXPsUWFy3l">pic.twitter.com/VXPsUWFy3l</a>
&#8212; Kara Duffy (@KaraDuffyCBS12) <a href="https://twitter.com/KaraDuffyCBS12/status/1062642192274128898?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2018</a></blockquote>
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But at some point that evening, the whole place shut down, leaving Duffy asking &#8220;Where is everyone!?&#8221;
As if the situation in Florida wasn&#8217;t messy enough, a Barack Obama-appointed Florida judge has just <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38380/more-waiting-florida-judge-extends-deadline-hank-berrien">extended</a> the deadline to Saturday at 5 p.m. for voters whose votes weren&#8217;t tabulated due to signature problems.
As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38280/what-are-chances-recounts-will-swing-florida-james-barrett">reported</a> earlier this week, historical precedent indicates that both Republicans in the two big races will come out of the recounts seeing their victories confirmed:
<blockquote>
Heading into the recounts, Republicans Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott lead the two big Florida races for governor and U.S. Senate by counts of <a href="https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/florida/">33,669 and 12,536</a>, respectively. So what are the chances that the recount will reverse the outcomes? According to the 26 elections that have experienced a recount in recent history, almost zero. In fact, the average number of total votes that actually changed from recounts of similar elections was just 311 votes. &#8230;
Citing the nonpartisan group FairVote, the [<a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article221506705.html">Miami Herald</a>] notes that between 2000 and 2016, out of the 4,687 statewide elections only 26 went to a recount &#8212; and the outcomes of only three of those 26 reversed. &#8220;The 2004 Washington governor&#8217;s race, the 2006 Vermont state auditor&#8217;s race and the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race. The average swing in those three elections after the recounts? About 311 votes.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38377/bill-nelson-wont-overcome-rick-scott-report-says-hank-berrien">Bill Nelson Won&#8217;t Overcome Rick Scott, Report Says</a>

SEE IT: 12 Hours To Recount Deadline, Here’s What’s NOT Happening At Palm Beach Tabulation Center

On Thursday, a federal judge in Tallahassee threw yet another wrench into the process of finalizing the vote tallies in the battle for Florida&#8217;s U.S. Senate seat between incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and GOP Gov. Rick Scott. As the 3 p.m. deadline approached for counties to report the results of a machine recount in the races for the Nelson-Scott race, as well as the elections for governor and agriculture commissioner, U.S. District Court judge Mark Walker, who was nominated to the U.S. District Court by <a href="https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/walker-mark-eaton">former president Barack Obama in 2012</a>, extended the deadline to Saturday at 5 p.m. for voters whose votes weren&#8217;t tabulated due to signature problems.
Scott leads Nelson by 12,652 votes while GOP governor nominee Ron DeSantis leads Democratic nominee Andrew Gillum by 33,633 votes.
<a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/os-ne-florida-recount-ballot-ruling-20181115-story.html">The Orlando Sentinel</a> reports, &#8220;According to state data presented during a five-hour hearing Wednesday, with 47 of the 67 counties reporting, there were 3,781 ballots rejected for mismatched signatures, including 467 in Orange County.&#8221;
Walker stated, &#8220;The precise issue in this case is whether Florida&#8217;s law that allows county election officials to reject vote-by-mail and provisional ballots for mismatched signatures &#8212; with no standards, an illusory process to cure, and no process to challenge the rejection &#8212; passes constitutional muster. The answer is simple. It does not.&#8221;
Walker had his doubts over the efficacy of canvassing boards, which include the local supervisor of elections, a local judge, and a county commissioner, and decide whether a vote should be counted,.
Attorneys for Nelson and the Florida Democratic Party argued that a problematic signature could arise from injury or illness; attorneys from the Florida Department of State and the National Republican Senatorial Committee asserted that fraud was a genuine concern.
Scott spokeswoman Lauren Schenone said, &#8220;We are immediately appealing this baseless decision and we are confident we will prevail in the Eleventh Circuit. Let&#8217;s be clear- Bill Nelson&#8217;s high-priced Washington lawyers went to court to argue against a process that they previously argued for. It&#8217;s worth noting that Marc Elias is currently making THE EXACT OPPOSITE ARGUMENT in a similar case in Arizona.&#8221;
If the results tabulated by the 3 p.m. Thursday deadline show a race closer than 0.25%, a manual recount will be triggered. That would engender the review of overvotes, in which a voter voted for more than one candidate, and undervotes, in which the voter left the ballot blank. The Sentinel explained, &#8220;Valid votes are then added to the totals in the machine recount. Those results would be due Sunday at noon under deadlines set in state law. Voters who successfully challenge their rejected ballots could have their votes added to that total &#8230; Official results are scheduled to be certified at 9 a.m. Tuesday.&#8221;
Walker <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/02/16/president-obama-nominates-three-serve-us-district-court">was made</a> a Florida Circuit Judge in Tallahassee in 2009. Between 1999 and 2009, Walker was in private practice, specializing in civil litigation and criminal defense. Between 1997 and 1999, Walker served as an Assistant Public Defender for Florida&#8217;s Second Judicial Circuit.

MORE WAITING: Florida Judge Extends The Deadline For Counting Votes

According to <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/11/14/nelson-needs-royal-flush-in-court-cases-but-will-likely-come-up-short-696249">Politico</a>, Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson will, in all likelihood, come up short in his effort to reverse the results in his race against GOP Governor Rick Scott for Nelson&#8217;s Senate seat.
Scott currently leads Nelson by 12,652 votes, while the automatic recount has until Thursday to be tabulated. Politico spoke with experts who assert that Nelson&#8217;s last-ditch effort to grab the Senate seat from Scott will fail for two reasons: the lawsuits Nelson filed came too late, displeasing any courts assigned to review them, and the gap between Scott and Nelson is simply too large to overcome.
Michael Morley, a Florida State University election law professor, told Politico:
<blockquote>
A royal flush is right on the money. Nelson would have to have a perfect hand. He would have to win in every case. And even then, it would not seem to be enough to change the outcome. One study that I&#8217;ve seen shows that in the 21st Century, there have only been three statewide races that have had their results changed as a result of a recount. And in each of those races, the margins were in the hundreds, not more than 12,000.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Currently, only 7,871 absentee ballots were rejected statewide due to &#8220;voter error.&#8221; 35% came from GOP voters; 36% from Democrats, and 29% from independents. Politico notes that 10,186 other ballots were rejected because their envelopes were unsigned; 31% from Republicans, 44% from Democrats and 24% from independents. Politico calculates, &#8220;So if all those ballots were counted, Nelson would have to win 85 percent of them statewide in an election where he couldn&#8217;t get 50 percent of the vote so far.&#8221;
Politico notes that even if Nelson wins with his lawsuits, there&#8217;s no telling the number of ballots that will be counted. There is great irony in the fact that Nelson&#8217;s lead attorney, Marc Elias, has contended against a late-filed lawsuit concerning signature mismatches in Arizona, where the Democratic senatorial candidate was ahead and thus stopping the ballot count was advantageous.
The Scott campaign pointed that out, stating, &#8220;To put it simply, Democrats in Arizona are using the opposite and contradictory argument to the one they plan to use in court tomorrow in Tallahassee. For them, this isn&#8217;t about following the law, and it isn&#8217;t about having a free and fair election. This is about getting rid of Florida laws they don&#8217;t like.&#8221;
University of California election law professor Rick Hasen <a href="https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102236">pointed out</a> the flaw in Nelson&#8217;s arguments, writing, &#8220;I&#8217;m sympathetic to the arguments in general, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1344476">given my belief</a> that election statutes, when possible should be interpreted to enfranchise voters. But Florida laws were rewritten after the 2000 Bush v. Gore debacle to deal with giving too much discretion to election officials to decide on what counts as a valid vote, and rules that are clear in advance are the best for fair election administration. And the complaints about the rules for dealing with signature mismatches or deadlines are not new.&#8221;
Nelson&#8217;s campaign is hoping that undervotes, which occur when a ballot is not counted because of unclear marking by the voter, will put him over the top. But Politico notes, &#8220;&#8230;even if the Senate race in Broward got the same total votes as the gubernatorial contest, Nelson would have to win the additional pool of 26,105 votes by a 50-point margin in a county that he carried by 38 points.&#8221; Additionally, the great bulk of undervotes occur because of bad ballot design, and Florida officials are bound legally not to guess which way a voter would have voted.
Morley summed up that even if Nelson wins all his lawsuits, &#8220;Where are the votes going to come from?&#8221;

Bill Nelson Won’t Overcome Rick Scott, Report Says

Politico

With even former Gov. Jeb Bush now calling for her removal, Broward County supervisor of elections Brenda Snipes appears to be coming to terms with the notion that it&#8217;s &#8220;time to move on&#8221; after yet more botched handling of the counting process, sketchy behavior by her office, and a judge ruling that she has violated Florida laws.
&#8220;There is no question that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians&#8217; confidence in our electoral process,&#8221; tweeted Bush, who isn&#8217;t given to leveling harsh criticism online. &#8220;Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
There is no question that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians&#8217; confidence in our electoral process. Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts.
&#8212; Jeb Bush (@JebBush) <a href="https://twitter.com/JebBush/status/1062055907629109249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 12, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Bush&#8217;s call for her ouster follows a judge agreeing with an emergency lawsuit filed against Snipes by Florida Gov. Rick Scott for failing to abide by Florida laws regarding transparency in the counting process. When Snipes was asked about Bush&#8217;s call for her to be removed after the recount wraps up, Snipes signaled that she knows her time is up.
&#8220;He did post me here for a year and then I liked it and so I ran and I was re-elected four times,&#8221; she said, the<a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-election-snipes-replacement-20181113-story.html"> Sun-Sentinel</a> reports. &#8220;But it is time to move on &#8230; I think I have served the purpose that I came here for, which was to provide a credible election product for our members.&#8221;
But while Snipes is being called on to resign &#8212; should Scott not choose to remove her for incompetence, or DeSantis, should he go on to win the election &#8212; her follow-up comments suggested she might not be willing to walk away from her $178,865 salary just yet.
&#8220;I haven&#8217;t finalized that,&#8221; she said in reference to running again in 2020. &#8220;I&#8217;ll just check with my family they&#8217;ll tell me what I&#8217;m doing.&#8221;
But the Sun-Sentinel stresses that, in the end, it might not be up to her:
<blockquote>
That assumes Snipes, who makes $178,865 a year, would be allowed to finish out her term. Bush&#8217;s removal of Oliphant in 2003 was unusual &#8212; the governor ordinarily removes elected officials from office only if they have been arrested or charged with serious ethical violations, not over issues of competence. Nevertheless, that removal has set a precedent that a sitting elections chiefs can be removed by the governor for failing to do their jobs.
</blockquote>
Heading into the recounts, Scott held a 12,500-vote margin over incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson for the U.S. Senate seat, while Republican Ron DeSantis held a 33,600-vote margin over Democrat Andrew Gillum. As The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38280/what-are-chances-recounts-will-swing-florida-james-barrett">Daily Wire </a>reported Tuesday, historical precedent for recounts indicates that both margins are insurmountable, the average change in vote tallies in similar elections amounting to just 311 votes:
<blockquote>
With all the national attention on the two high-profile races, the <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article221506705.html">Miami Herald</a> looked back at previous recount elections in recent history and spoke to some experts to see what the odds of reversal might be. The outlet found some sobering numbers for Democrats. The declarations of victory by Scott and DeSantis and Fried, the Herald concludes, &#8220;may not be premature.&#8221; &#8230;
Citing the nonpartisan group FairVote, the outlet notes that between 2000 and 2016, out of the 4,687 statewide elections only 26 went to a recount &#8212; and the outcomes of only three of those 26 reversed. &#8220;The 2004 Washington governor&#8217;s race, the 2006 Vermont state auditor&#8217;s race and the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race. The average swing in those three elections after the recounts? About 311 votes.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38298/limbaugh-democrats-media-doing-exactly-what-we-james-barrett">Limbaugh: Democrats, Media Doing Exactly What We Predicted In Florida</a>

Democrat Elections Supervisor Snipes Says It’s ‘Time To Move On,’ But Critics Shouldn’t Get Too Excited

On Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offered his typically <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/chuck-schumer-urges-florida-to-ignore-ballot-deadlines/?utm_campaign=trueanthem&amp;utm_content=5bebc8a704d301685240ab97&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter">partisan perspective</a>, this time urging Florida election officials to disregard deadlines for submitting vote tallies in the Senate race in which Florida GOP Gov. Rick Scott holds a narrow lead over incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Nelson in Washington, D.C., Schumer boasted, &#8220;The more time that passes since election day, the better things keep looking for Democrats. Supervisors of the elections should have all the time they need to count Floridians&#8217; ballots to make sure that the candidate with the most votes is actually seated in January. Even if the vote count has to go beyond Sunday.&#8221;
Schumer <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/13/florida-recount-schumer-nelson-987749">sounded ebullient</a> about Nelson&#8217;s chances, saying, &#8220;Republicans know that if this recount is conducted fairly and thoroughly that Sen. Nelson has an excellent chance of being reelected. If this is done fair and square, we believe Sen. Nelson has an excellent chance, a much greater than half chance of being reelected.&#8221;
Camille Gallo, a spokeswoman for the Senate GOP campaign, countered, &#8220;Despite Schumer&#8217;s nonsensical claim that victory is right around the corner, it&#8217;s well past time for Nelson to hang it up and let Floridians move on from his failed reelection campaign.&#8221;
Schumer <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/416505-schumer-tells-trump-to-stay-out-of-florida-recount">attacked</a> President Trump, blasting, &#8220;President Trump and Gov. Scott seem dead set against counting every vote. Why? Because they&#8217;re worried if every vote is counted, Bill Nelson will be reelected as senator from the great state of Florida,&#8221; adding that Trump and Scott were &#8220;attempting to bully the election officials in Florida out of doing their jobs in an attempt to win this election.&#8221;
On Monday, Trump had tweeted, &#8220;The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!&#8221;
Nelson charged Scott with &#8220;using his power as governor to try to undermine the voting process. He&#8217;s thrown around words like voter fraud, with no proof.&#8221; Schumer added, &#8220;Gov. Scott needs to recuse himself from any involvement in the recount and do it now. He&#8217;s a contestant in this election and can&#8217;t possibly be trusted to be a neutral and fair arbiter as the votes are tallied.&#8221;
Comparing the Florida race to the 2000 presidential election, when Florida was the key to the race between George W. Bush and Al Gore, prompting a recount of the state&#8217;s vote, Schumer said his reasoning for a delay in reporting the vote tallies was that the November election did not affect the electoral vote. He said, &#8220;We will not have a rerun of 2000, when bullying and intimidation ruled and created a rush to judgement that, to this day, many Americans believe that election was unfairly decided. That cannot happen again.&#8221;
The results of the current machine recount of the Scott-Nelson battle are due on Thursday; the results of a manual recount would have to be delivered by Sunday.

Schumer To Florida: Forget The Vote Tally Deadlines. The More Time, The Better.

Charles Schumer

On his top-rated radio show Monday, Rush Limbaugh took some time to address what&#8217;s going down in his home state, Florida, as the big recounts for the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races are underway. The Democrats and the media, said Limbaugh, are doing exactly what he predicted they&#8217;d do: hammer the message that all they&#8217;re trying to do amid all the voting shenanigans is make sure that &#8220;every vote is counted.&#8221;
In both races, the Republican candidates went into the recount with leads that history indicates are insurmountable. Gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis leads Democrat Andrew Gillum by over 33,500 votes, while Rick Scott leads incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson by over 12,500. The average change in the vote count from previous similar recounts is just <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38280/what-are-chances-recounts-will-swing-florida-james-barrett">311 votes</a>. But that isn&#8217;t stopping the Democrats from ratcheting up the rhetoric and the media dutifully echoing their talking points.
&#8220;[T]he defeated gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum is now making one of my warnings on Friday come true as loudly and vividly as possible,&#8221; said Limbaugh Monday. &#8220;I want to remind you of a major, major point that I made in discussing the ongoing recount and how the left is gonna handle this, the terminology they use and what it actually means.&#8221;
Here&#8217;s what Limbaugh <a href="http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2018/11/09/dems-stealing-elections-in-florida-and-arizona/">said</a> last week:
<blockquote>
So when Gillum or anybody starts talking about &#8220;count every vote,&#8221; it means including the provisional ballots. If it hasn&#8217;t happened yet, it will very soon, and it will be done the way the left always does. The provisional ballots will be cast by minorities, people of color, the poor, women and children, whoever are the protected class. The people that are always getting the excrement sandwich in life in America will be those who have cast the provisional ballot.
And because these are people that are downtrodden, homeless, hungry, thirsty, we need to really, really, really count them. They need to participate in our process. So the move will be to count every provisional ballot as legitimate and eligible. &#8220;Count every vote&#8221; is a dog whistle for &#8220;we need to find more votes,&#8221; not votes that have been cast. We&#8217;re looking for ways to add to vote totals. We are looking for ways to actually cast ballots. That&#8217;s what all of this means, and that&#8217;s what&#8217;s going on.
</blockquote>
And, right on cue, that&#8217;s exactly what&#8217;s happening. &#8220;Andrew Gillum is running around running around Florida now, and that&#8217;s his mantra, count every vote, count every vote,&#8221; said Limbaugh.
The sinister suggestion, said Rush, is that every vote is not being counted &#8212; and you can guess who&#8217;s supposedly refusing to count them.
&#8220;The effort here is to make it look like Rick Scott and DeSantis and the Republicans are trying to not count ballots. That&#8217;s the purpose of this. So they&#8217;re running around saying, &#8216;Count every ballot! Count every ballot!&#8221; said Limbaugh. &#8220;It&#8217;s made to look like some votes are being suppressed, and whose votes would those be? Why, people of color of course and women and children and minorities. There&#8217;s a psychological component to this. &#8216;Count every vote&#8217; is not really a requirement. They&#8217;re not talking to Brenda Snipes. Brenda Snipes doesn&#8217;t need to be told count every vote down in Broward County. She knows what&#8217;s going on. It is meant for the media to use that as a psychological message to the great unwashed that somebody&#8217;s trying to not count every vote.&#8221;
As evidence that the Democrats and their allies are making sure to echo that sentiment every chance they get, Rush played a &#8220;count every vote&#8221; montage that was almost eerie in its unity:
<blockquote>
BAKARI SELLERS: In Georgia, Arizona, and Florida, Democrats have to have the same message: just make sure every single vote is counted.
CHUCK SCHUMER: Every vote should be counted.
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: We need to count the votes.
ED HENRY: (newsroom noise) Count all the votes.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH: I want every vote counted.
JANE HARMAN: Every vote has to be counted.
TOM PEREZ: Every vote must be counted.
CORNELL BELCHER: Count every vote.
CHERI BUSTOS: Every vote ought to count.
</blockquote>
&#8220;Who&#8217;s not counting them? We have media people in this. &#8216;Count every vote.&#8217; What is this?&#8221; said Limbaugh. &#8220;Where is the idea we&#8217;re not counting every vote? We did count every vote on election night, and the Republicans won the Senate and the governorship in Florida!&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38113/limbaugh-responds-trump-cracking-down-childish-james-barrett">Limbaugh Responds To Trump Cracking Down On &#8216;Childish&#8217; Acosta At Wild Presser</a>
<a href="https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2018/11/12/florida-we-counted-every-vote-and-democrats-lost/">Transcript via RushLimbaugh.com</a>

Limbaugh: Democrats, Media Doing Exactly What We Predicted In Florida

Rush Limbaugh

We haven&#8217;t heard from Jeb Bush since he was being trounced by Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, but he&#8217;s back and weighing in on politics.
The former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is calling for Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes to be removed from her position.
&#8220;There is no question that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians&#8217; confidence in our electoral process,&#8221; Bush wrote on Twitter. &#8220;Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
There is no question that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians&#8217; confidence in our electoral process. Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts.
&#8212; Jeb Bush (@JebBush) <a href="https://twitter.com/JebBush/status/1062055907629109249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 12, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Bush, a Republican, has a long history with Snipes. He appointed her to her current post when he was governor after suspending Miriam Oliphant in November 2003 for what he called &#8220;grave neglect, mismanagement and incompetence.&#8221;
And Snipes has had numerous problems, the <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-who-is-brenda-snipes-20181109-story.html">Sun Sentinel</a> reported.
<blockquote>
&#8212; A court ruled she had broken election law when she destroyed ballots from the 2016 election 12 months after it, instead of the 22 months required by federal law.
&#8212; A medical marijuana amendment was left off some ballots in 2016.
&#8212; Election results in the 2016 primary were posted on the elections office&#8217;s website before polls closed, another violation of election law.
&#8212; In 2012, almost 1,000 uncounted ballots were discovered a week after the election
&#8212; In 2004, some 58,000 mail-in ballots were not delivered to voters, leaving election officials to scramble to send new ones.
</blockquote>
Just like in 2000, when Florida&#8217;s vote led to a 36-day recount in the presidential race, there have been many problems with tabulating ballots cast on November 6. A statewide recount is underway amid news of irregularities. One county revealed it had allowed some hurricane-displaced voters to cast their ballots by email &#8212; a violation of state law. Another had to restart its recount after getting about a quarter finished because someone forgot to push a button,&#8221; the <a href="https://apnews.com/71472c46f771431aa5c038db78a6c78f">Associated Press</a> reported.
&#8220;State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points,&#8221; the AP said. Right now, Republican Rick Scott leads Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson by 0.14% in the U.S. Senate race. In the governor&#8217;s race, the tally right now shows Republican former Rep. Ron DeSantis leading Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41%.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) also urges the dismissal of Snipes. &#8220;She has shown she&#8217;s incapable of conducting a large and important election in a way that inspires public confidence and trust,&#8221; he told <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/11/12/incompetence-broward-election-chief-likely-to-be-forced-from-office-by-scott-desantis-691675">Politico</a>. &#8220;She&#8217;s been found to have destroyed ballots, in violation of the law. Opened absentee ballots early, in violation of the law. Misprinted ballots that have gone out.&#8221;
Trump has also criticized the process. &#8220;When will Bill Nelson concede in Florida? The characters running Broward and Palm Beach voting will not be able to &#8216;find&#8217; enough votes, too much spotlight on them now!&#8221; he wrote Tuesday on Twitter.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
When will Bill Nelson concede in Florida? The characters running Broward and Palm Beach voting will not be able to &#8220;find&#8221; enough votes, too much spotlight on them now!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1062382618870726656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 13, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Trump also wrote: &#8220;The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061962869376540672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 12, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>

Jeb Bush Calls For Broward County Election Official To Be Removed From Post

Donald Trump

Heading into the recounts, Republicans Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott lead the two big Florida races for governor and U.S. Senate by counts of <a href="https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/florida/">33,669 and 12,536</a>, respectively. So what are the chances that the recount will reverse the outcomes? According to the 26 elections that have experienced a recount in recent history, almost zero. In fact, the average number of total votes that actually changed from recounts of similar elections was just 311 votes.
As votes trickled in from Democrat strongholds Broward County and Palm Beach County, the vote gap between DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum fell under 0.5%, automatically triggering a machine recount. The margin of Scott&#8217;s victory over incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson fell below 0.25%, requiring a hand-recount. A third recount race, for agricultural commissioner, is led by Democrat Nikki Fried over Republican Matt Caldwell by about 5,300 votes.
With all the national attention on the two high-profile races, the <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article221506705.html">Miami Herald</a> looked back at previous recount elections in recent history and spoke to some experts to see what the odds of reversal might be. The outlet found some sobering numbers for Democrats. The declarations of victory by Scott and DeSantis and Fried, the Herald concludes, &#8220;may not be premature.&#8221;
The only race with a legitimate shot of a changed outcome would benefit Republicans: Caldwell has an outside chance due to &#8220;the thousands of Republican-leaning overseas votes that have yet to be counted.&#8221; The other two would be, well, a Democratic &#8220;miracle.&#8221;
Gillum&#8217;s odds are astronomical, and Nelson&#8217;s, while obviously a little better, would still defy all outcomes of similar recounts by a massive margin. In fact, &#8220;a recount that reverses an initial margin of more than a few hundred votes would be unprecedented in the recent history of American elections,&#8221; the Herald underscores.
Citing the nonpartisan group FairVote, the outlet notes that between 2000 and 2016, out of the 4,687 statewide elections only 26 went to a recount &#8212; and the outcomes of only three of those 26 reversed. &#8220;The 2004 Washington governor&#8217;s race, the 2006 Vermont state auditor&#8217;s race and the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race. The average swing in those three elections after the recounts? About 311 votes.&#8221;
The only chance that Nelson has is if there was some sort of systematic vote-counting error that impacted tens of thousands of votes.
Nelson&#8217;s lawyer, Marc Elias, says that&#8217;s exactly what he believes happened. In Broward County, about 25,000 ballots contained votes for the gubernatorial race but not for the Senate race. Elias believes that is due to some kind of tabulation error that will ultimately push Nelson to victory.
But even if Elias&#8217; theory is correct, analysts say it would still be highly unlikely that enough of those votes would go his way. If the 69% Nelson received by average in Broward were to hold true, he&#8217;d still fall short by about 4,800 votes.
However, University of Wisconsin political science professor Barry Burden has another theory that Nelson&#8217;s camp won&#8217;t like: The reason people voted on the gubernatorial race and not the Senate race might be because Broward poorly designed the ballots. The Senate race was listed in the bottom left corner of the ballot, and people might&#8217;ve just failed to see it. Oops.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38230/broward-county-elections-supervisor-be-forced-james-barrett">Broward County Elections Supervisor To Be &#8216;Forced From Office&#8217; After Violating Florida Law</a>

What Are Chances Recounts Will Swing Florida Elections To Democrats? Here Are The Results Of Past Recounts.

In Monday&#8217;s episode of &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/38261/ep-250-florida-woman-corrupts-democracy">The Michael Knowles Show</a>,&#8221; bestselling author Michael Knowles questioned the validity of the &#8220;found&#8221; votes in Florida.
&#8220;[T]he races have tightened. The races for senate and governor. Ron DeSantis running against Andrew Gillum for governor, and Republican Rick Scott running against Bill Nelson for the Senate,&#8221; said Knowles. &#8220;And what you&#8217;re seeing on CNN and NBC, MSNBC, New York Times, wherever, is that the polls are tightening.&#8221;
&#8220;Right, they&#8217;re tightening because you&#8217;re finding a bunch of fraudulent ballots, that&#8217;s why,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Gotta call it like it is.&#8221;
Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott and gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis are ahead only by razor-thin margins, Knowles explained, prompting recounts that seem to be favoring Democrats Bill Nelson and Andrew Gillum. 
&#8220;In Broward and Palm Beach county, they found, it was a teacher, in a polling place at an elementary school went into a closet and just magically found a box of provisional ballots waiting in there,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This brings us to the definition of a word by the way: Provisional ballot. When Democrats discover provisional ballots days after the election, the provision that those ballots seek to rectify is that Republicans won the election. That&#8217;s the provision, so just in case Republicans win an election, there&#8217;s a provision called inventing a bunch of fake ballots to go in there.&#8221;
Video and transcript below:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P26bHFR1SGA?start=394" width="560"></iframe></div>
<blockquote>
So, amidst all of this, the races have tightened. The races for senate and governor. Ron DeSantis running against Andrew Gillum for governor, and Republican Rick Scott running against Bill Nelson for the senate, and what you&#8217;re seeing on CNN and NBC, MSNBC, New York Times, wherever, is that the polls are tightening.
Right, they&#8217;re tightening because you&#8217;re finding a bunch of fraudulent ballots, that&#8217;s why.
Gotta call it like it is.
Right now, Rick Scott, the Republican is only up .25% on Nelson, so that&#8217;s 12,500 votes or less. This triggers a hand recount of the election. Ron DeSantis, the Republican is up less than half a percentage point on Andrew Gillum, less than 33,700 votes. In Florida, that triggers a machine recount right away, so now they&#8217;re tightening up.
In Broward and Palm Beach county, they found, it was a teacher, in a polling place at an elementary school went into a closet and just magically found a box of provisional ballots waiting in there. This brings up to the definition of a word by the way: Provisional ballot.
When Democrats discover provisional ballots days after the election, the provision that those ballots seek to rectify is that Republicans won the election. That&#8217;s the provision, so just in case Republicans win an election, there&#8217;s a provision called inventing a bunch of fake ballots to go in there.
So Townhall is reporting Laura Loomer saw a bunch of other provisional ballots that were found in a rental car in Ft. Lauderdale airport. They were found in the trunk of the car. You can actually see that some people have been posting around twitter that these boxes of ballots were transported in private cars. They were loaded onto rental trucks.
Here&#8217;s just one example of a guy who happened to see it.
Yeah, I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s right either. I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s right.
</blockquote>
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