Trump: Fla. recounts ‘massively infected’
Monitors, cops find no wrongdoing
Both parties have dug in for another recount battle in Florida, with President Trump stating “an honest vote count is no longer possible.”
Lawyers for the Republican Party and the GOP candidates joined with Trump in alleging that irregularities, unethical behavior and fraud have taken place since the polls closed last week.
The president demanded that the election night results — which showed the Republicans leading based upon incomplete ballot counts — be used to determine the winner.
Trump went on to allege that “new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged” and that “ballots (are) massively infected.” It was unclear what he was referring to.
The state’s law enforcement arm and elections monitors have found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Much of the Republicans’ ire was centered on Democrat-leaning Broward County and its Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, a Democrat who was appointed in 2003 by then-Republican governor Jeb Bush.
Broward elections officials have said this year’s count was encumbered by the unexpectedly high turnout for a midterm election and the unusual length of this year’s ballots, which contained 12 state constitutional amendment proposals, partly as a result of a constitutional revision commission that meets once every 20 years.
Trump’s comments came just hours before Broward Chief Circuit Chief Judge Jack Tuter held an emergency hearing on a request by lawyers for Republican Gov. Rick Scott, whose lead in the Senate race over incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson has narrowed with the counting of provisional and other ballots. They asked for additional sheriff’s deputies to be sent to Snipes’ office to monitor ballots and voting machines.
State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. In the Senate race, Scott’s lead over Nelson was 0.14 percentage points. In the governor’s contest, unofficial results showed Republican former Rep. Ron DeSantis ahead of Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points.