Brenda Snipes resigned effective next January 4, but Rick Scott just preemptively suspended her
Broward County Election Supervisor gone: “After a series of inexcusable actions, it’s clear that there needs to be an immediate change …”
Brenda Snipes, the Broward County Election Supervisor, is credited with making Florida ballot counting a joke, once again.
Republican Governor Rick Scott won the Senate race despite all the problems in Broward and Palm Beach Counties, where Bill Nelson closed the gap significantly after election day. Republican Ron DeSantis held off Andrew Gillum’s post-election day surge as well, though it wasn’t as close.
Snipes submitted her resignation just after the election results were certified, after intense criticism. The resignation is effective January 4, 2019, the day after Scott is due to leave office as Governor. So that would deprive Scott of the ability to name a replacement. It seemed like a strategically place poke in Scott’s eye by Snipes.
Snipes is to receive $130,000 in pensions.
But Scott is not waiting. He just suspended Snipes, as The Sun-Sentinel reports:
Florida Gov. Rick Scott has suspended Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes and is appointing a close ally to replace her.
Peter Antonacci, president and CEO of the business development organization Enterprise Florida, will serve for the remainder of Snipes term until a replacement can be chosen by voters in November 2020.
Scott cited “missed deadlines” and “lost ballots” as reasons for suspending Snipes, who had already announced she was resigning effective Jan. 4.
“After a series of inexcusable actions, it’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,” Scott said in a prepared statement….
His appointment means he’ll oversee the 2020 presidential election in Broward County.
Here is Scott’s statement:
“Every eligible voter in Florida deserves their vote to be counted and should have confidence in Florida’s elections process. After a series of inexcusable actions, it’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. I know that Pete will be solely focused on running free and fair elections, will not be running for election and will bring order and integrity back to this office.”
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Comments
Kiss your pension goodbye, Bren.
Actually from all the articles I have read it won’t affect her pension at all. She will still be sucking 130K yearly out of the Florida Taxpayers.
The replacement better be prepared to do a top-to-bottom full cleaning and establish iron-clad rules. And yes, there will be firing.
She was a Jeb Bush appointee.
Not only that but she has stayed in the job for years despite a history of polling problems in previous Broward County elections. Scott’s action is way overdue and means little since with her Jan resignation new Gov DeSantis would have appointed her replacement.
She was an affirmative action hire, probably to try and keep the feds away.
No, she was not a “hire” of any kind. She is an elected official.
It’s a heavily Democrat county, which had overwhelmingly elected a Democrat. Do you seriously think it would have been right for him to appoint a Republican to replace her?!
And she kept her job since then by being reelected, three times, decisively.
Ha ha! — Nelson
“….is credited with making Florida ballot counting a joke, once again.”
A joke is funny. The corruption of this woman was no joke.
Is that an orange jumpsuit she is wearing? It suits her.
It’s too prevent her from hiding all the evidence. Of course she’ll never be prosecuted for all her crimes but they’ll want the leverage anyway.
Rick Scott has been the Florida governor since 2011.
Snipes was convicted of destroying ballots after the 2016 election.
Snipes was sued by the Florida Republican Party in February of 2018 for illegally opening mail-in ballots before voter identities could be verified.
Snipes was allowed to resign last month, and retain her 130k/yr pension.
Rick Scott, today: “As gubberner, I shall suspend this dastardly woman, before I go to swamp swim with da Yankees up North.”
Way to swing those big brass ones, Rick.
She was not “convicted” of anything. She wasn’t even charged with anything. And the threshold for firing an elected official should be high.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A judge has ruled that Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes violated state and federal laws by destroying ballots from a 2016 congressional race while they were the subject of a lawsuit against her office.
https://www.local10.com/news/florida/broward/broward-county-elections-supervisor-illegally-destroyed-ballots-judge-rules
That means ‘convicted.’ You’re tiresome, milhouse. That’s your only freebie.
Why does Broward, and I believe either Palm Beach or Dade county, have their own, different, ballots?
Should not the entire State of Florida have the same ballots, and voting machines, State wide?
Also, each voting area MUST have observers from both parties and also those who can demonstrate (I don’t know how) that they are independent, and they must WATCH ever move, especially in the Democratic (Minority) counties of Florida. That, as usual, is where the corruption, or stupidity, or lack or organization seems to always occur.
We don’t seem to have these problems on the West Coast, in Counties like Collier, Lee, Charlotte…we do in TAMPA, but again that is a Democrat-Minority strong hold.
IS there a pattern here, or is it only me?
What a stupid question. No, of course it shouldn’t. No state does, or can. Each election district has to have a different ballot because the candidates are different. That’s why you can’t vote anywhere you like, because the ballots they have will be wrong for you.
Also the conduct of elections is meant to be a local matter. That’s how it’s always been in the USA, and the principle of subsidiarity supports the idea that it should remain so.