Bruised and battered Broward feels the pain of election criticism.

Broward’s reputation is taking an “irreparable hit” because of its vote-counting problems, says one county commissioner who thinks new leadership at the elections office is needed.

“We are seeing millions of dollars of unearned negative media pounding away at the Broward brand,” Commissioner Michael Udine said at Tuesday’s commission meeting. “When you are in a hyper-partisan environment like this, you have to do things perfectly, or at least close to perfectly, because every mistake gets magnified a hundred times.”

Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes should probably step down after the recount is completed, Udine said, because “clearly the confidence in our elections are gone," and the county has to do better.

“I don’t think the leadership of that office is going to be able to get the confidence back,” Udine said.

For the moment, commissioners have directed county administrators to provide whatever help Snipes needs to finish the recount, primarily with any additional security and staffing.

The Nov. 6 elections finished with statewide races for U.S. Senate, governor and agriculture commissioner close enough to require the automatic recount. There are also four local races being recounted.

“Hopefully, we’ll get through this with the rest of our reputation intact,” County Administrator Bertha Henry said.

As to whether Snipes stays or goes, the commission has no control over that because she is a separate, elected Constitutional officer. She receives her budget from commissioners, but does not answer to them.

Mayor Beam Furr said future budgets may have to ensure the elections office receives everything it needs. But Udine said that shouldn’t be an issue because the commission gave Snipes everything she asked for this year — including three additional superfast vote-counting machines costing $346,000 requested after the August primaries. Commissioner Nan Rich at the time said she supported the purchase of the additional machines because “we have consistently been the bottom of the barrel getting our voting results in.”

Despite the purchase, Broward and Palm Beach counties still brought up the rear in counting the November vote — although the machines could help with Broward’s recount. They can tally multiple races at once, while Palm Beach has to recount each race separately.

Snipes’ budget this year is $18 million and includes 74 positions, which comes out to $25.14 per vote so far in the 2018 election;

while Palm Beach County had $11.2 million budgeted for its elections office and 52 positions, coming to about $18.74 for every vote cast.

Palm Beach County elections office has a separate $11.1 million purchase planned this year to upgrade voting equipment that was 11 years old.

"The machines work fine," Commissioner Steven Abrams said. "It's just not equipped to handle four recounts."

Miami-Dade’s elections office, which performed the fastest of the three South Florida offices, has a $25.9 million budget and 99 positions. Its budget comes out to about $31.86 per vote.

Broward Commissioner Tim Ryan said budget and other issues can wait until after the recount.

“Now is not the time for us to make off-the-cuff comments or an analysis of what’s happening at the Supervisor of Elections Office,” Ryan said.

When the recount is over, Udine said he will request the county conduct an operational audit of the elections office, which would require permission from Snipes.

Commissioner Dale Holness agreed the county needs to look for ways to help improve the election process, but he cautioned against a rush to judgment against Snipes or her office.

“A lot of conclusions have been drawn with limited amount of information,” Holness said. “Understand that some folks want to exploit every, every, every iota of negativity that they can find or even drum up or make up, because I’ve heard a lot of made-up stuff.”

Furr said a good part of the vote-counting delays can be attributed to the close to 195,000 mail-in ballots cast in the county this year.

“We really have encouraged absentee ballots through free postage,” Furr said “We don’t have a way to handle that very quickly. That has to be done by hand and I don’t think people realize how painstaking and tedious that is.”

Broward wasn’t alone in having problems, Commissioner Steve Geller said. Bay County allowed about 150 people to vote by fax or email in violation of state law, he said.

“Can you imagine if the same thing had happened in Broward?” Geller asked. “They would have been asking that Ms. Snipes be put in the stockade or in stocks, so people could throw stuff at her. And you hear not a word from them — the same people making these allegations about Broward — about what happened in Bay County.”

Rich said there may need to be some changes to state law. She was concerned that a recount would be called before all military and overseas ballots are counted. Those ballots have until Friday to be received, although they have to be postmarked by Nov. 6.