Brenda Snipes Lost 2,000 Votes Right Before Resignation
After one final glitch in counting the votes from the Nov. 6 election, Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes resigned, according to published reports.
“It is true. She did send it,” Burnadette Norris-Weeks, counsel to the supervisor, told the Sun-Sentinel.
The New York Times said the letter from Snipes, a Democrat, said she would resign effective Jan. 4.
“It has been my passion and honor to serve as the Supervisor of Elections for Broward County voters,” she said in a letter to Gov. Rick Scott (now the state’s junior senator-elect). “Although I have enjoyed this work tremendously over these many election cycles, both large and small, I am ready to pass the torch.”
Apparently, even Broward Democrats were ready for Snipes to move on, too.
“Wow, that was fast,” said Cynthia Busch, chairwoman of Broward County’s Democrats, told The Times.
“People don’t have confidence in her anymore, and if that includes even those of us who have tried to be helpful over the last couple of years as best we can, that in and of itself makes it an untenable situation going into a presidential election,” she said.
On Saturday, Snipes announced 2,040 ballots were either lost or misplaced, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
“The ballots are in this building,” Snipes said.
“There would be nowhere else for them to be,” Snipes, 75, added. “The ballots are in the building. The ballots are in the building.”
The ballots were not found by Sunday’s deadline for submitting a manual recount, and Broward County submitted its original vote count plus any overseas and military ballots that were received since the polls closed.
That humiliation followed one earlier last week in which Snipes missed by two minutes the deadline for filing a machine recount that would have given Scott, who was running for Senate, an additional 779 votes in what would be the Republican’s ultimate victory over Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, the U.K. Guardian noted.
The string of problems led to widespread denunciation of Snipes. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who appointed Snipes to the post in 2003, weighed in.
There is no question that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians’ confidence in our electoral process. Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts.
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) November 12, 2018
As did Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, on the very day of the election.
#Broward election supervisors ongoing violation of #Florida law requiring timely reporting isn’t just annoying incompetence. It has opened the door for lawyers to come here & try to steal a seat in the U.S. Senate & Florida Cabinet
#Sayfie6/6
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 8, 2018
When Snipes, who is black, was asked by the Guardian whether racism was a factor in the deluge of criticism she has experienced after the election, she replied, “Probably. Probably.”
Although Snipes and Broward County were the focus of electoral controversy, Florida overall lost about 5,000 ballots in the recount process, which has brought new scrutiny to several counties and Florida’s overall method of conducting elections, The New York Times reported.
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