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Protests Erupt Over Possible Recounts in Close Florida Elections It’s Déjà Vu in Florida, Land of Recounts and Contested Elections
(35 minutes later)
LAUDERHILL, Fla. — Recount mania overtook Florida on Friday, harkening to the national drama of the 2000 presidential election as lawyers marched into court on two ends of the state, protesters demanded the ouster of a local elections official in the state’s second-largest county and a trickle of ballots continued to be tallied. LAUDERHILL, Fla. — The election that must not be named, the one that scarred Florida’s collective psyche 18 years ago, came back to haunt the state on Friday, a specter of competing lawsuits, rowdy protests and disputed ballots in Tuesday’s vote that inescapably harkened back to the political drama of 2000.
Protesters, many of them carrying signs supportive of President Trump, gathered outside the office of the Broward County supervisor of elections in Lauderhill, Fla., as the local canvassing board prepared to meet. The demonstrators called for the removal of Brenda C. Snipes, an elected Democrat whose office has a history of problematic elections, chanting, “Lock her up!” Again, the prospect of a recount, like the one that kept the presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore in limbo. Again, trouble in South Florida, the center of action nearly two decades ago. Again, an ugly partisan fight with no less than confidence in the state’s elections system at stake.
On Twitter, the president accused Democrats of sending “their best Election stealing lawyer” to Broward County. Lawyers and party activists raced to Broward and Palm Beach Counties, where two of the most closely watched races in the country — for a Senate seat and for governor — still hang in the balance, nearly four days after the election on Tuesday. Judges held emergency hearings, siding with Republicans who questioned the secrecy imposed on ballot counts by local elections officials. Democrats sued, challenging local processes that render thousands of ballots invalid.
“Don’t worry, Florida — I am sending much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD!” Mr. Trump wrote. President Trump weighed in, warning darkly on Twitter of “potential corruption” and “election theft,” though there was little or no evidence to suggest anything more than the usual delay and dithering that have come to characterize Florida elections.
The president and protesters echoed Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican nominee for Senate, who late on Thursday sued Dr. Snipes and another elected Democrat, Susan Bucher, the elections supervisor of neighboring Palm Beach County, accusing them of failing to transparently report voting results. “Rampant fraud” was underway, Mr. Scott charged from the steps of the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee, the state capital. “It’s not a crisis of the Constitution,” said Katherine Harris, the Republican who was Florida’s secretary of state during the recount in 2000. “It’s a close race. We’ve had those races in Florida, obviously, but they’re going to have to be patient with the process.”
At issue are several extremely close election contests — including the race for Senate, and for the governor of Florida — whose outcomes depend on the final vote counts now under way. It is likely that recounts will be ordered Saturday in both races, as well as in the vote for state agriculture commissioner. Yet patience was hard to find on Friday, and nowhere was it scarcer than in Broward County, the state’s second-largest county and a Democratic bastion that has had so many ballot controversies that The Miami Herald called it “the most controversial elections department” in South Florida. Dozens of protesters descended on a canvassing board meeting there on Friday to demand the ouster of an elections supervisor who has presided over many of Broward’s ballot-counting dramas.
In their lawsuit, Mr. Scott’s campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee offered no evidence of fraud. But they did cite concerns that outside observers were not being allowed to monitor the review of ballots, including copies made of damaged absentee ballots and ballots faxed in by military service members from overseas. The supervisor, Brenda C. Snipes, is an elected Democrat, initially appointed by former Gov. Jeb Bush, and her office has been criticized for a litany of problems. Elections employees were found to have unlawfully destroyed counted ballots in a congressional race in 2016. Mailed-in ballots were secretly opened. A constitutional amendment over legalizing medical marijuana was left off some ballots. In 2016, Broward’s software vendor posted election results online early.
“The lack of transparency raises substantial concerns about the validity of the election process,” they said in a separate petition to the court. New problems started surfacing this week. On Thursday, a teacher complained that the county had left an empty box for provisional ballots at a polling place inside a school. And then there were the ballots that were still being canvassed on Friday, amid continuing protests from Gov. Rick Scott (the Republican in the contested Senate race), Republican Party lawyers who flew in from Washington, journalists, protesters and finally, Mr. Trump.
On Friday morning, Judge Krista Marx of the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County expressed frustration that Republican lawyers had not raised concerns earlier. Still, Judge Marx ruled from the bench to grant a request by Mr. Scott’s lawyer that any ballot deemed defective by local elections officials make its way to the canvassing board for a final determination of its validity. “If you look at Broward County, they have had a horrible history,” the president said before departing Washington on a trip to Europe. “And if you look at the person — in this case, a woman — involved, she has had a horrible history. And all of a sudden, they’re finding votes out of nowhere.”
Then, on Friday afternoon, a judge in Broward County, Carol-Lisa Phillips, found that the county elections supervisor had violated public records laws and ordered the release of all available information on absentee ballot status and early voting, as well as on the number of ballots cast, the number counted and the number yet to be counted. The mere mention of Florida these days still evokes nightmares for Democrats who worked closely with Vice President Al Gore 18 years ago. Florida’s 25 electoral votes at the time — and the presidency itself — were up in the air for 36 grueling days while ballots were recounted and the country watched and waited. The drama ended with an indecipherable but wholly consequential Supreme Court decision that put Mr. Bush in office.
“This is information that should have already been compiled,” Judge Phillips said. “It should be a matter of public record at this point.” “It’s inconceivable that 18 years after 2000, Florida still hasn’t developed competencies in terms of counting ballots in an orderly and timely manner,” said one former top Gore aide who did not want to be named for fear of stirring up old ghosts.
Senator Bill Nelson, Mr. Scott’s opponent, and the Democratic Executive Committee of Florida filed a lawsuit of their own in federal court, challenging the procedures for determining which voter signatures should count on disputed mail-in or provisional ballots. Allowing each county elections supervisor to make their own decision on questionable signatures results in a patchwork of criteria that is unconstitutional, the lawsuit says. But Florida wasn’t the only state still furiously counting ballots.
“The problem is that voters in one county are subject to a different standard for reviewing signatures than others,” said Mr. Nelson’s lead recount lawyer, Marc Elias, who said he expected the margin of about 15,000 votes separating Mr. Scott and Mr. Nelson to shrink a bit further. In the Georgia governor’s race, the state was still trying to determine if the candidates were headed for a runoff. Brian Kemp, the Republican currently ahead of his Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, by about 63,000 votes, declared victory this week. But allies of Ms. Abrams spent Friday in a vigorous push to get people who cast provisional ballots because of identification problems to take a final step to ensure their votes would count.
Mr. Scott’s campaign manager, Jackie Schutz Zeckman, responded that “Bill Nelson’s entire campaign has been a fraud.” In Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic candidate in the state’s uncalled Senate race, expanded her lead on Friday to 20,203 votes over Martha McSally, the Republican contender.
“They aim to disenfranchise law-abiding Florida voters by producing ballots out of thin air until they have enough to win,” she said. “We will not allow them to steal this election.” As the complicated political maneuverings unfolded in Florida, there were constant reminders that, 18 years after the Bush-Gore controversies, Florida remains in Republican control — a crucial factor in an election where partisan interests are at stake. Florida Republicans in 2018 hold the same levers of power over the election that they did in 2000, with the governor appointing the secretary of state in charge of elections.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, told reporters in Washington that he was not ruling out a federal role in the Florida count, pointing to the history of problems with vote counting in Broward County in previous elections. By Friday, when the Senate race appeared to be squarely within the margins of an automatic recount — Mr. Scott was ahead of the Democratic incumbent, Senator Bill Nelson, by only 0.18 percentage points — the governor’s own lawsuits were heard in state court. He had filed them the night before against Dr. Snipes and her counterpart in Palm Beach County, Susan Bucher, over how the last ballots were being counted and reported.
“If you look at Broward County, they have had a horrible history,” he said. “And Rick Scott, who won by — you know, it was close, but he won by a comfortable margin — every couple of hours it goes down a little bit,” he said. “I think that people have to look at it very, very cautiously.” The governor’s successful lawsuits focused on access to defective ballots (in Palm Beach) and to complete vote totals (in Broward), but the governor also said, without evidence, that there was “rampant fraud.” He went as far as calling on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate Dr. Snipes and Ms. Bucher, who is also a Democrat.
Among the protesters outside the Broward County canvassing site on Friday was Representative Matt Gaetz, a Republican far from his district in the Florida Panhandle, who called on Florida’s secretary of state, Ken Detzner, to take over control of the Broward County elections office. But a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said on Friday that no fraud allegations had been made to the Florida Department of State, which oversees elections, and that no criminal investigations of Dr. Snipes or Ms. Bucher would take place. Mr. Scott did succeed in getting a state court judge to find that Ms. Snipes had violated the State Constitution, and public records laws, in refusing to disclose detailed information about ballots and tallies.
“I’m calling on Ken Detzner to put this office under receivership of the State of Florida,” he said. Ms. Snipes did not respond to requests for an interview, and did not speak publicly on Friday.
Mr. Gaetz was surrounded by dozens of protesters carrying a variety of hand-scrawled signs. One read, “Fake votes don’t count.” In both counties, the canvassing boards worked into the night, examining each provisional ballot cast by people who faced some kind of irregularity on Election Day, such as not bringing identification or showing up at the wrong precinct.
Mr. Nelson said that if the votes are counted, he will win. Secretary of State Ken Detzner was expected on Saturday to order recounts in both the Senate and governor’s races, in addition to the race for state agriculture commissioner, once unofficial results come in from all of the state’s 67 counties. In the contest for governor, Ron DeSantis, a Republican, leads Andrew Gillum, a Democrat, by 0.44 percentage points.
“Clearly, Rick Scott is trying to stop all the votes from being counted and he’s impeding the democratic process,” Mr. Nelson said in a videotaped statement. “You can see this from his irresponsible, unethical and unprecedented press statement last night that he’s worried and he’s desperate.” “It’s very unfortunate that some of the highest elected officials in our country are trying to disrupt our democracy because they don’t like the demographics of our voters,” Ms. Bucher said. “I would wish they would allow us to continue to count the ballots.”
Gail Coniglio, 52, a Delray Beach Republican, stood in the crowd wearing pins for Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Scott. In Broward, civic leaders who have known Dr. Snipes for years dismissed the suggestion that any nefarious activity was underway.
“This isn’t just about Broward County: This is about voter fraud nationwide,” she said. “We are showing government leaders we are not standing for this. It’s got to be investigated.” “To do fraud, you have to be clever,” said Lori Parrish, the county’s former elected property appraiser and a Democrat who endorsed Dr. Snipes’s opponent in 2016. “I don’t think there’s fraud. There’s incompetence.”
Joe Duva, 67, of Tamarac, cited a court ruling from earlier this year that found that Dr. Snipes’s office had destroyed ballots from a 2016 congressional race. Ms. Parrish and others expressed exasperation that Broward was once again en route to becoming a late-night television punch line.
“I heard a lot about corruption in blue Broward in 2016 when ballots were destroyed,” he said. “The responsibility goes to the top. Brenda Snipes dropped the ball here; it’s happened again.” “They laugh at us and call us ‘Floriduh,’” Ms. Parrish lamented.
In Palm Beach County, where authorities were still reviewing provisional ballots, Ms. Bucher, the elections supervisor, said she was sensing attempted interference in the vote-counting process from senior elected officials, which she attributed to the political makeup of her county, where Democrats substantially outnumber Republicans. Steve Geller, a Democratic county commissioner who was in the State Senate during the 2000 recount, said politicians have been loathe to publicly criticize Dr. Snipes because she, like them, is an elected official. But they are frustrated, too.
“I just felt that it’s very unfortunate that some of the highest elected officials in our country are trying to disrupt our democracy because they don’t like the demographics of our voters,” she said. “I would wish they would allow us to continue to count the ballots.” “Miami-Dade is a larger county than we are, and they seem to have no problem with counting ballots in a timely fashion,” he said. “I’m not happy.”
She said provisional election results would be completed by Friday afternoon. But others warned against blaming Ms. Snipes and her staff in an election in which turnout was unusually high for a midterm election.
Florida’s 67 counties must submit unofficial results to the state by noon on Saturday. At that point, Mr. Detzner, an appointee of Mr. Scott, must order machine recounts for races with a margin of 0.5 percentage points or less. Three statewide races currently fall under that threshold: the Senate race, in which Mr. Scott leads Mr. Nelson by 0.18 percentage points; the governor’s race, in which Ron DeSantis, a Republican, leads Andrew Gillum, a Democrat, by 0.44 percentage points; and the agriculture commissioner race, in which Nikki Fried, a Democrat, leads Matt Caldwell, a Republican, by 0.04 percentage points. “Let’s not forget: She was appointed by a Republican to right the ship,” said former State Senator Chris Smith, a Democrat. “And she has righted the ship. Because of the closeness of the election, she’s getting a lot of scrutiny, but let’s not forget there’s hundreds of thousands of votes in Arizona being counted, too.”
The challenges were not limited to Republicans. Mr. Nelson and the Democratic Executive Committee of Florida sued in federal court in Tallahassee, the state capital, arguing that the patchwork of local procedures to determine which voter signatures are deemed valid was unconstitutional. Even a former congressman, Patrick Murphy, a Democrat, said on Friday that he learned the ballot he cast by mail in Palm Beach County was not counted because of a signature issue he did not learn about until he checked on Thursday.
“It’s hard to believe that it’s still Broward and Palm Beach Counties having these issues,” he said. “We really do need to look at our system and see how we improve it.”
Mr. Nelson, in his first remarks since Mr. Scott’s scorched-earth comments about fraud on Thursday, said in a statement that every ballot should be counted.
“Scott is abusing the full force of his public office as governor to stop a complete and accurate counting of all the votes in Florida — which would determine whether he wins or loses,” he said. “The governor has decided to abandon the most fundamental of all rights, because he fears that he will lose the election if all the votes are counted.”
Outside of Florida, veterans of the 2000 recount could not help but compare what had changed between then and now. Florida voters no longer punch cards to vote, so there are no more “hanging chads” or “butterfly ballots.” But the nasty political fight, they noted, seems no different.
“We’re the only major democracy that allows partisans who are deeply interested in the election process to run it. It’s banana-republic stuff,” said Ron Klain, who was general counsel of Mr. Gore’s recount committee in 2000. “Florida was a closely divided state 20 years ago, and it’s a closely divided state today. This doesn’t happen elsewhere because other states are not as closely divided.”
Said Ms. Harris: “It still feels as though it were yesterday.”