Wants Fla. county elex boss fired
President Trump on Wednesday called for the firing of the Broward County, Fla., elections chief amid a frenzied vote recount hampered by overheated machines and a slew of lawsuits.
“She’s a disaster,” Trump said of Brenda Snipes in an interview with The Daily Caller. “First thing you do is fire her and her cronies.”
Trump, who has claimed on Twitter that Broward and Palm Beach counties are guilty of “Election Theft,” went on to call Snipes a “disgrace” and accused her of tipping the scales in election results.
“When they call this woman incompetent, they’re wrong,” Trump told The Daily Caller. “She’s very competent, but in a bad way.”
Meanwhile, the Palm Beach County ballot-tallying machines that overheated amid a statewide recount of nearly 175,000 early votes were back up and running Wednesday — only for officials to realize there are also inconsistencies among another set of paper ballots cast on Election Day, according to reports.
The latest problem has left officials in Palm Beach County, Florida’s third-most populous, seeking divine intervention to finish the recount for the closely contested US Senate race by the 3 p.m. Thursday deadline.
“We are in prayer mode,” a county elections supervisor told NBC affiliate WPTV.
The county had been running its decade-old tabulating machines around the clock since 5 p.m. Saturday.
On Tuesday, the overtaxed machines stopped working, and officials noticed a significant discrepancy between initial tallies and the machines’ recounts of about 175,000 early votes.
Officials blamed the inconsistency on the machines falling out of calibration under the strain.
“The machines are old,” said county elections head Susan Bucher, who noted that they underwent maintenance just before the midterms. “I don’t think they were designed to work 24/7 — kind of like running an old car from here to LA.”
Two mechanics flown in had the machines working by early Wednesday, and officials were able to finish counting the early-voting ballots, WPTV reported.
But the officials then had trouble calibrating some paper ballots, meaning they would have to recount those as well.
A petition for a deadline extension is pending — one of several suits piling up in Florida courts over the state’s contentious election results.
A federal judge in the state invoked a well-known “Star Trek” episode during one Wednesday hearing to describe the snowballing suits.
“I feel a little bit like Captain Kirk in the episode with the Tribbles, where they start to multiply,” said Judge Mark Walker.
Palm Beach County is currently recounting the contest for Senate between Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson and Republican challenger and current state Gov. Rick Scott.
There are two other races, including the gubernatorial contest between Democrat Andrew Gillum and Republican Ron DeSantis, that qualify for a recount under state regulations — but the machines can handle only one race at a time.
Scott announced Wednesday he would step down from the state panel responsible for certifying election results to avoid a conflict of interest.
Both the Senate and gubernatorial races have been unofficially called for the Republicans.