Florida | Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion - Part 32
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Florida Tag

Why, Florida? WHY?! Just when it looked like Palm Beach County had better sailing than Broward County, news comes out that aging equipment has overheated and caused mismatched results. From The Miami Herald:
The county’s decade-old ballot-counting machines overheated and gave incorrect totals, forcing the county to restart its recount of about 175,000 early votes, supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said Tuesday night.

A judge has extended the recount in Palm Beach County to November 20. The original deadline was this Thursday. From The Palm Beach Post:
The order would include extending the recounting of votes in the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Bill Nelson and Gov. Rick Scott, the governor’s race between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum, the race for agriculture commissioner between Democrat Nikki Fried and Republican Matt Caldwell, and the race for state House District 89 between Democrat Jim Bonfiglio and Republican Mike Caruso.

I detailed yesterday how the recount in the Florida senate and governor races have become messy, especially in Broward County. Now it looks like election officials may have to recount votes by hand instead if the results are too tight. Incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson has also demanded that his opponent Governor Rick Scott recuse himself from the recount.

The recount in Florida has to finish by Thursday, November 15, but officials in Palm Beach County claimed that the recount cannot possibly end by then. It doesn't help that President Donald Trump has demanded officials halt the recount while both sides continue to demean each other, especially in Broward County, whose recount has turned into a massive dumpster fire. Republican Gov. Rick Scott still leads incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson by 12,562 votes (.15%). Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis leads Democrat Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 33,684 votes (.41%)

As the mandatory recount kicks off in Florida, insults and accusations fly between Democrats and Republicans. As of Sunday morning, Governor Rick Scott (R) leads Senator Bill Nelson (D) by 12,562 votes (by 0.15%) in the Senate race.  Representative Ron DeSantis (R) leads Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum by 33,684 votes (by  0.41%)) in the gubernatorial race.

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.”

From joy and relief to oh-em-gee. Florida's Republican Secretary of State has been forced to order a recount of Tuesday's election results for both the Senate and the gubernatorial races.  The recount is mandatory and automatically triggered when the vote margin is less than 0.5%, as it has become since initial results were announced. The recount results are due by 3 p.m. EST on Thursday, November 15th, 2018.  If there is a margin of less than 0.25% following this recount, there will be a second recount, this time by hand. The results of this second recount (which seems likely in the Senate race since the margin is already less than 0.25%) will be due three days later, on the 18th.

It's never over. During my time in private law practice, time and time again I saw cases that were lost converted into wins at the last second when the 'winning' attorney wasn't paying attention.

The Florida elections remain a mess. The heat has turned up even more since Governor Rick Scott announced last night he and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have decided to sue Broward County and Palm Beach County. Scott is in a tight race with incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. Now it looks like Nelson has decided to sue "to extend the deadline for local election offices to turn in vote counts."

Lakeisha Sorey at Miramar Elementary School in Broward County found a provisional ballot box inside a closet. Sorey did not touch it in order to avoid tampering. She phoned state Rep. Shevrin Jones (D) and the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office. The woman at the office told Sorey the box probably contained blank ballots, but Sorey mentioned the box is locked.

The polls were wrong. Gillum consistently was up by low single digits. I think his embrace of the anti-Israel, terrorist-glorifying Dream Defenders hurt him.

Democrat Mayor of Tallahassee Andrew Gillum has about an even shot of becoming Governor of Florida, if the polls are accurate. He might even be a slight favorite to defeat Republican Ron DeSantis. There's a lot politically not to like about Gillum -- he's on the far left of the Democratic Party, and that's saying a lot. His proposals could do serious damage to Florida. Yet in this age of Democrat anti-Trump rage, and a soft-spot for socialism in the party, Gillum just might pull it off.