Sheriff's Deputies Sent to Guard Ballots in Broward County
The odd thing about the recount underway in Broward County, Florida, is that there's nothing odd about it.
With ballots still being counted over a week since the polls closed, this is the second election year boondoggle in a row for the county that encompasses FL-23, the Florida U.S. Congressional district of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D), and for its elections supervisor, Brenda Snipes, who publicly endorsed and even campaigned with Wasserman Schultz for her reelection this year.
In 2016 one of Schultz's challengers, a progressive independent candidate named Tim Canova, filed suit for a recount and discovered that Brenda Snipes had illegally destroyed thousands of ballots after the election, making an accurate recount impossible. Her job is literally to count and keep those ballots, and she actively did the exact opposite, a Florida judge ruled in May of this year.
Snipes was appointed by then-Governor Jeb Bush in 2002 to a replace another county supervisor who was removed for incompetence after numerous voting irregularities in Broward County in that year's election. Lightning seems to have struck Debbie Wasserman Schultz's district not once, nor twice, but three times!
Make it four times: Back in 2012, thousands of dead people and non-citizens were found on Florida's voter rolls, including in Broward County, where Brenda Snipes said:
"I'm feeling really uncomfortable about this."
As of now with the nation's eyes on Broward County, the AP reports that sheriff's deputies have been "sent to guard ballots and voting machines, a compromise aimed at alleviating concerns," in a stunning spectacle that is sure to further erode public trust in the integrity and credibility of the final tally in Broward County.