Candidate: Was my run for Congress in District 23 fixed?

As a first-time candidate for Congress this year, I experienced many firsts.

Some interesting and exciting, and others not so much. Most of it felt like an honor, vying for the privilege of being the voice of so many on issues of great import to our South Florida community.

When I came in second place, in a three-way Republican primary, I was disappointed to say the least. Joe Kaufman, running a fourth time, won. I reasoned he had learned much about the process which had him better prepared.

The pre-election buzz and media had been that I was the first formidable candidate that could pose a credible challenge to Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the incumbent Democrat, in the general election.

In Republican circles, “the buzz” was that the race was between the third candidate, Carla Spalding, and myself – and not Mr. Kaufman. I received much support from a myriad of sources, including endorsements from the Fraternal Order of Police and two local South Florida newspapers.

On primary election night, many were surprised as results came in and the verdict for Kaufman was issued. Almost immediately, I started receiving calls questioning the results. Where did those votes come from? Where was the enthusiasm or organizational presence that resulted in this voter turnout for him? Many were puzzled. Still many more started asking questions about the tabulation process, and specifically, about Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes and her office.

Questions were raised concerning absentee ballots, chain of custody, and even more difficult to verify --- the electronic machines themselves and the algorithms used to tabulate and produce results.

I certainly didn’t want to believe anything had occurred in “bad faith,” instead accepting the results as simply just a lack of experience on my part in the operational aspects of a campaign. Besides, in our country, we decide things by elections where you accept the will of the people and the results, then you congratulate the other side and wish them well because it’s the well-being of our community and people that is most important.

Yet now in the face of the circus we’re seeing here in Broward County with our supervisor of elections – continuing to count until you get the results you desire – I have to very seriously raise the question, “Was my run for Congress in District 23 fixed?”

Viewed by many as the candidate who would provide Wasserman Schultz her most credible challenge in a general election --- how best to avoid that? Ensure I lose in the primary.

Tim Canova, the independent candidate in 2018, suggested that likely happened to me. He challenged Wasserman Schultz in the 2016 Democrat primary and received over 20,000 votes, which made it dramatically closer than anyone expected. He now runs in 2018 as an independent and gets just over 7,000 votes. Canova certainly believes this was “retaliation” for having successfully sued the supervisor. Who can blame him? Election integrity has been his issue ever since the 2016 election.

I now can’t help but question my election results and whether any results in Broward can be trusted? It’s fair to ask: Were electronic voting equipment and/or absentee ballots in my primary manipulated to purposely knock out the formidable candidate that could “present Wasserman Schultz her biggest challenge to date?” [The Capitolist.com –

Hard to argue anything other than faith and confidence in the supervisor of elections has been lost.

Whether you believe it is incompetence, or worse – both are bad – and makes a shambles of a sacred privilege in a free nation – the right to vote.

The current, or likely next Governor, needs to take action to: 1) remove and replace the supervisor of elections, and 2) direct state authorities to come in and place the office under a form of state “receivership” to straighten out this mess.

Further, the Attorney General’s office needs to initiate a formal investigation focused on this entire election ballot recount process. We need to know how over 83,000 “unaccounted” ballots appeared after the election was concluded? How these ballots seemed to be devoid of any “chain of custody” compliance? How many disqualified ballots were counted (e.g., differing signatures, non-citizens)?