Attorneys for Democrat candidate for Florida governor Andrew Gillum and Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) objected Saturday to the exclusion of a vote by a non-citizen.
Despite their objections, the vote was not counted, and the Nelson campaign has disavowed their own attorney, claiming that the attorney “was not authorized” to make such a decision and iterating that “non-citizens cannot vote in U.S. elections.”
Lawyers for Florida Democratic candidates Andrew Gillum and Bill Nelson both fought to prevent a non-citizen’s vote from being excluded Friday night, according to a transcript of a Palm Beach County Canvassing Board proceeding obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.Michael Barnett, chairman of the Palm Beach Republican Party, told TheDCNF that the county’s canvassing board was going through provisional ballots and quickly deciding whether to allow or disallow each. This exchange is of the first non-citizen’s vote they encountered. “We had a court reporter that we hired to sit in the proceedings, which are public,” he said.The vote was disallowed despite the objections of the lawyers because two of the three members of the canvassing board ruled that it was an impermissible vote, he said.Marc Elias, a lawyer for Nelson, told TheDCNF: “The lawyer who was present was not someone we had authorized to make such an objection. Non-citizens cannot vote in U.S. elections.”He did not explain how the lawyer, Mr. Scarola, came to be representing Nelson’s interests in Palm Beach.. . . . Elias is a powerhouse election lawyer who worked for the Democratic National Committee and hired Fusion GPS, which fed the FBI a “dossier” about Trump and Russia. He also litigated the recount that led to Al Franken defeating Norm Coleman for a Minnesota Senate seat.
Fox News has more on the exchange.
The incident occurred during a canvassing meeting Friday in Palm Beach County, where provisional ballots were being examined. According to the draft transcript of the meeting, taken by a court reporter hired by the Florida Republican Party, a provisional ballot was ordered excluded from the count, as it came from a non-U.S. citizen.
“First one of these we’ve seen,” said Judge August Bonativa.“Not a U.S. citizen, not counted.” said Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, according to the transcript.
Here’s the partial transcript [via DC Caller]
Republicans regard the objection as “a sign of desperation” and “just one example of the shenanigans and corruption we’ve seen from the Democrats in Florida for so many years.”
Fox News continues:
Republicans saw Friday’s objection in Palm Beach County as an indication of the tactics Democrats were prepared to use.“We think it is a sign of desperation and goes to demonstrate the tactics that the Democrats, especially the Florida Democratic Party, Andrew Gillum’s campaign and Bill Nelson’s campaign, will resort to to steal this election from the rightful winners — Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis,” Michael Barnett, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, told Fox News.“It’s shameful, there’s no excuse for objecting to the rejection of a non-U.S. citizen vote, but this is just one example of the shenanigans and corruption we’ve seen from the Democrats in Florida for so many years. We will not let them steal this election from us,” he said.
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