Are Florida Democratic election officials the dumbest Democrats in the country? They apparently can't even steal an election properly.

Governor Rick Scott, the GOP candidate challenging Senator Bill Nelson, has won two separate lawsuits against Democratic officials who violated the Florida constitution and election law. At issue are ballot counting procedures that are clearly spelled out in the law that two Democratic party functionaries blatantly violated.

One suit targeted Broward County Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes who, incredibly, was refusing to turn over voting records on the counting and collection of ballots to Scott and the NRSC, despite the law saying she must.  The judge ordered her to immediately do so.

The other suit by Scott was against Palm Beach Election Supervisor Susan Bucher. According to AP, Bucher was sued for "refusing to allow official party and campaign representatives into the ballot counting area, and having staff members determine a voter's intent without review by the county canvassing board."

I guess she didn't want anyone to know what she was up to.

In Snipes case, Scott's suit is seeking to determine just how many ballots were cast in Broward County. Snipes has been upping the total since election day, and the governor wants to know where all these extra ballots are coming from.

ABC10:

Lawyers for Snipes argued that requiring such a swift response would interfere with ongoing efforts to finish counting Broward County ballots. But lawyers for Scott contended the information is already required to be collected under state law and should take minutes to provide.

 

Scott filed a lawsuit Thursday night against, asking the court to order Snipes to turn over several records detailing the counting and collection of ballots. 

But Snipes attorney said in court Friday that it would be inappropriate for the court to intervene at this time, simply because Scott wants the counting process to be sped up. 

The attorney said Snipes is not refusing to turn over the records, but needs more time to do so. 

Scott's thin lead over Nelson has narrowed during the vote-counting in the days since he declared victory Tuesday night.

Without citing any evidence of wrongdoing, Scott also asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate elections offices in the Democratic strongholds of Palm Beach and Broward counties, questioning whether they have been taking too long in some sort of effort to inflate the Democratic vote. 

"Any evidence of wrongdoing...? If the police find a body in an alley with no visible marks on it, they automatically assume it's a homicide. There's something really stinky about what's happening in those two counties with ballots and the FDLE should be looking into it.

Meanwhile, another judge in Palm Beach County ordered Bucher to turn over under-counted and over-counted ballots.

As ballots in the gubernatorial and Senate races head to a recount, Scott sued Bucher Thursday night for refusing to allow official party and campaign representatives into the ballot counting area, and having staff members determine a voter's intent without review by the county canvassing board.

On Friday, West Palm Beach Circuit Court Judge Krista Marx granted an injunction ordering Bucher to submit "over-voted" and "under-voted" absentee ballots to the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board for public review of each vote before they are counted.

In a machine recount, all completed ballots are re-fed through ballot-counting machines to try to confirm the original, unofficial counts.

The machines must first be re-tested and re-calibrated to read and separate ballots with apparent over-votes, that is, the ballots in which the machines read that the voter may have selected more than one candidate, and undervotes, in which the machine does not register a vote on the ballot. The testing of the machines has to be done in public.

The lawsuit against Bucher accused her office of withholding some of the over-voted and under-voted absentee ballots from the county canvassing board, even though Florida law dictates that only a canvassing board is allowed to determine "all valid votes" from over-votes or under-votes.

Law? Law?? We don't need no stinkin' law! Bucher and her minions are far too busy trying to steal the election to obey the law.

Not allowing representatives of the opposing political party to oversee the counting of ballots is ridiculous. Even more unbelievable is allowing Democratic staffers to determine the validity of a ballot without review by the county canvassing board. Are Bucher and Snipes really that stupid? Or really that devious?

Scott currently leads Nelson by 15,000 votes which is less than 1% of the total. If it remains this close, there will be a machine recount and if, at that point, it's still less than a .5% difference between the two candidates, a manual recount will be ordered.

So, plenty of time and opportunity for Democrats to keep counting until they get the desired result.