The kick in the head... he registered as a Republican. The pretense for allowing Cruz to register was "he hasn’t been convicted of a felony yet."
Should Broward County be scrounging around for votes in a jail? This article makes it sound legal. Should it be?
Nikolas Cruz is arrested after his murderous rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Feb. 14. Courtesy: Josh Cohen Miami
Five months after killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, confessed shooter Nikolas Cruz registered to vote from Broward County Jail.
Andrew Pollack, the father of Meadow Pollack, one of the 14 students Cruz confessed to murdering on his Feb. 14 rampage, Tweeted his fury Saturday morning, referring to Cruz by his Broward County court case number.
“18-1958 murdered 17 students & staff, including my daughter Meadow. Yet in July, Broward Sheriff @ScottJIsrael let people into the jail to get him & other animals registered to vote. The Despicable Democrats have no shame. Can’t let them steal this election.”
Cruz registered on July 25 as a Republican, according to online state records. He used the address of the Broward County Jail, 555 SE First Ave., in Fort Lauderdale.
Cruz remains eligible to vote in Florida. The 20-year-old is a Florida resident and U.S. citizen; is over 18; and, despite standing mute before 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder, hasn’t been convicted of a felony yet.
Mass murderer Nikolas Cruz (residing in Broward County jail) registered to vote
Perhaps they should not only focus on recounting the votes but also the 'validity' of each vote. Dead people voting, illegals voting, forged signatures, voting more than once for the same candidate, voted but not a resident of the state, etc.
This is an egregious example, which may have been pulled off by illegals in TX, in 2016. No reason to believe it's not going on today... in particular Broward and Palm Beach Counties.
Video 468
Oh...and Florida voting authorities should force Brenda Snipes to take a polygraph test. If she refuses that's one foot in the jail cell. -----------------------------
Miami (AFP) – Florida authorities on Saturday ordered a statewide recount in the contentious races for US Senate and governor, amid tit-for-tat accusations of fraud from the candidates — plunging the state once again into election uncertainty.
Eighteen years after the Sunshine State found itself at the heart of a battle for the US presidency, it was once again in the spotlight after Tuesday’s vote, which left the contests for statewide offices undecided.
Florida’s 67 counties had been given until midday (1700 GMT) on Saturday to submit unofficial totals.
State law triggers a machine recount if the difference in a race is within 0.5 percent. Florida’s secretary of state Ken Detzner issued the official order for the recounts after the deadline.
After the cut-off, the Senate race between outgoing Republican governor Rick Scott and incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson was super close: Scott’s lead stood at just 12,562 votes out of nearly 8.2 million cast, a margin of just 0.15 percent.
In the governor’s race, the latest unofficial results on the Florida division of elections website show Republican Ron DeSantis, who was backed by Donald Trump, leading Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum by just 33,684 votes out of more than 8.2 million cast, or a margin of 0.41 percent.
“Machine recount indicated,” the website said in both cases.
In a statement, Detzner said the results of the machine recount would be due on November 15 at 3:00 pm (2000 GMT).
Trump was not amused by the development, tweeting from France: “Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely!”
– Lawsuits –
With Florida’s developments raising partisan tensions to fresh highs, Trump on Friday alleged a major corruption scandal was brewing.
“What’s going on in Florida is a disgrace,” Trump told reporters.
“Bad things are going on in Broward Country, really bad things,” Trump added, referring to a Democrat-heavy county where officials were slowly counting votes including absentee and provisional ballots.
Scott filed lawsuits against Broward and Palm Beach counties alleging fraud after his lead narrowed.
On Saturday, he urged Florida’s sheriffs to “watch for any violations during the recount process as outlined in Florida law.”
Meanwhile, Nelson — accusing Scott of trying to suppress votes — fired back with a lawsuit of his own to block steps that would reject thousands of mail-in ballots.
The recount is reminiscent of the dramatic recounts that occurred in parts of Florida after the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
Those recounts were halted by the US Supreme Court, and Bush defeated Gore by 537 votes in Florida to win the presidency. Broward County was at the heart of that controversy as well.
Most US political races have already been settled. But Florida is not alone.
In neighboring Georgia, the Democratic candidate for governor initiated legal action to ensure all votes were counted in her contest.
In Arizona, there is still no official result in a fierce US Senate battle that has Democrat Kyrsten Sinema leading Republican Martha McSally by a slim margin.
The ballot chaos raises fresh questions about why the world’s most powerful democracy is incapable of producing swift and accurate election results across all 50 states.
Thought elections were decided by The People not by who has the best lawyers.
Clinton campaign lawyer with ties to Trump dossier leads Democrat recount effort in Florida
Florida Gov. Rick Scott: Democrat lawyer said he came to Florida to 'win' the election.
The Clinton campaign's top lawyer who was behind the controversial anti-Trump dossier is spearheading the recount effort to keep Floridian Bill Nelson in the U.S. Senate, and is already facing accusations he is trying to "steal" the seat from under the noses of the Republicans.
Marc Elias, of Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie, retained opposition research firm Fusion GPS which hired former British spy Christopher Steele to compile the dossier which included salacious and unverified allegations about President Trump's visit to Russia before he was elected to the White House.
Now Nelson, the Democrat incumbent since 2001, has turned to Elias with the hotly contested Florida Senate race looking more likely to be decided after a recount.
His announcement as the lead recount lawyer for Senator Nelson and intervention into the unfolding Florida controversy prompted President Trump to single him out in a tweet Friday.
As soon as Democrats sent their best Election stealing lawyer, Marc Elias, to Broward County they miraculously started finding Democrat votes. Don’t worry, Florida - I am sending much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD!
Elias has provided legal counsel to several high profile Democrats, as well as the DNC and many of the party's political committees, over his career.
He worked as general counsel for both John Kerry's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2004 as well as Hillary Clinton's in 2016.
Both he and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained private research firm Fusion GPS in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC, The Washington Post reported last year.
Attorney Marc Elias is spearheading the recount effort to keep Floridian Bill Nelson in the U.S. Senate. (David Jolkovski for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Republican lawmakers have raised questions about how the FBI used the dossier in its probe of Russian meddling during the 2016 presidential election. Last September, CNN reported that he accompanied John Podesta, the former Clinton campaign chairman, to a closed-door interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee to answer questions about Fusion GPS.
Last month, Fox News reported that Michael Sussman, another Perkins Coie lawyer working with the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign, contacted FBI general counsel James Baker in late 2016 and provided documents for the Russia probe as federal investigators prepared a surveillance warrant for Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Sussmann’s contact with Baker suggests another connection between the early stages of the FBI’s Russia probe and those working with the DNC and Clinton campaign, according to the report.
Elias has now returned to the public eye to represent the Democrats in their Florida battle.
Speaking Thursday night, outgoing Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the GOP Senate nominee locked in the battle for the Senate seat with Nelson, said that “rampant fraud” in Palm Beach and Broward Counties, where Democrats outnumber Republicans, may be to blame for why his lead has shrunk since the polls closed Tuesday.
Scott is suing the Broward’s election boss election Brenda Snipes over the vote tallying. He is also suing Palm Beach election supervisor Susan Bucher.
But Elias said he would aggressively examine and address reports of irregularities, according to Fox 35 Orlando.
"We’re doing this not just because it’s automatic, but we’re doing it to win,” Elias said, according to the station. "A significant number of ballots have not yet been counted and, because of the size of Florida, we believe the results of the election are unknown and require a recount."
"Let's be clear: When Elias says 'win,' he means 'steal'," Scott's campaign said, according to NPR.
Scott pointed to several examples in the past when Elias's Democratic clients led elections by razor-thin margins, claiming there was no precedent for successful recounts. These included Al Franken's Senate victory in Minnesota in 2008, where he won by 225 votes, one of the closest races in history.
Scott said Elias has argued that recounts only really happen when the number of votes separating the candidates are in their dozens or hundreds.
‘Now he’s down here to try to steal the election and to try to thwart the will of the voters of Florida,” Scott said Thursday.
Went to bed election night around 12:45 am. My feeling was although we lost the House it could have been a lot worse. I was sorry to see Walker lose in Wisconsin and John James in Michigan as well as some others. But at least I could take to bed solace in knowing 4 key Republicans Scott, Kemp, McSally, and DeSantis were all declared winners. Now they're all in jeopardy.
If you look back 20 years or so and want to talk about voter fraud the vast majority of it falls directly in the lap of Democrats. The fact Democrats want to do away with voter ID is all you need to know.
Remember this?
A blatant example of electioneering INSIDE a polling place in Philadelphia where they set up a voting booth right IN FRONT OF an Obama mural:
Local Republicans went to court to have a judge order a mural of President Obama covered up at the Ben Franklin Elementary School polling place in the Northeast Philadelphia.
(They did a marvelous job of covering it up)
Eric Holder refused to prosecute the Black Panthers.
(Probably because he's a member)
Even after reports of court-appointed GOP poll watchers being forcibly removed in some precincts in Philadelphia and Ohio and were replaced with Democrats.
Surely, you recall Melowese Richardson, a Democratic poll worker in the critical battleground state of Ohio who voted for Barry 5 times. She was charged with voter fraud then let go by a liberal judge.
Caught On Video: Concerned citizen sees ballots being transported in private vehicles & transferred to rented truck on Election night. This violates all chain of custody requirements for paper ballots. Were the ballots destroyed & replaced by set of fake ballots? Investigate now! pic.twitter.com/GUPZnz7Gny
Go on Bing and type in [Democratic voter fraud]...its their specialty.
PHOENIX — Arizona Republicans and Democrats agreed Friday to give rural voters an extra chance to fix problems with their ballots in the count of the state's tight Senate race, resolving a GOP lawsuit that sought to stop urban voters from using those very same procedures.
The settlement was technically between Republicans and the state's county recorders, but Democrats agreed to it as it was announced in a Phoenix courtroom Friday afternoon. Arizona's 14 counties now have until Nov. 14 to address the issue.
The Republican lawsuit alleged that the state's county recorders don't follow a uniform standard for allowing voters to address problems with their mail-in ballots, and that Maricopa and Pima counties improperly allow the fixes for up to five days after Election Day.
Democrat Kyrsten Sinema has jumped into a slight lead over Republican Martha McSally in the midst of the slow vote count.
Four local Republican parties filed the lawsuit Wednesday night challenging the state's two biggest counties for allowing voters to help resolve problems with their mail-in ballot signatures after Election Day. If the signature on the voter registration doesn't match that on the sealed envelope, both Maricopa and Pima County allow voters to help them fix, or "cure" it, up to five days after Election Day.
Many other counties only allow voters to cure until polls close on Election Day. Now, all will follow the standard set by Maricopa, Pima and two other rural counties that allow for post-Election Day cures.
Only a few thousand votes would be affected by the issue, but every one counts in the razor-close U.S. Senate race.
At a brief hearing Thursday, a Maricopa County official said only about 5,600 ballots are at affected in her county and the rate is similar in the 14 smaller counties. More than 2.3 million votes were cast statewide.
The political overtones of the lawsuit were unmistakable. On Thursday, Sinema jumped into a minuscule lead of about 9,000 out of 1.9 million votes counted after trailing since Tuesday. Her lead came from the two counties singled out by Republicans in their lawsuit, Maricopa and Pima Counties.
On Friday, Republicans escalated their attacks on Democrats, claiming they were trying to disenfranchise rural voters -- even though Democrats had little do with how the rural counties chose to count ballots. Those counties are predominantly run by Republicans. Democrats, in turn, said the GOP was trying to nullify cast ballots.
The race remained too close to call Friday with more than 400,000 ballots still uncounted. Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes said counting may continue until Nov. 15. "We know there's urgency out there, but we want to get it right, not quick," he said.
Arizona is notoriously slow at tallying ballots even though about 75 percent of votes are cast by mail. Each of those ballots must go through a laborious verification process.
Settlement reached in tight Arizona Senate vote count
Brenda Snipes, Broward elections official at center of ballot storm, has history of controversy
After reading this I can't fathom why she wasn't fired a long time ago...not to mentioned jailed!
She's as dirty as they come. Take a hard look at this bitch. From a personal standpoint does anyone honestly believe she EVER voted Republican in her life? Also the impetus she uses to justify her actions.
Broward County Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes is yet again at the center of an election scandal.. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes is at the center of the explosive Florida ballot-counting battle, with the state's Senate and gubernatorial elections on the line — but it's hardly her first voting controversy.
“She has had a horrible history … and all of a sudden they’re finding votes out of nowhere," President Trump, referring to Snipes, told reporters Friday.
Thank you @marcorubio for helping to expose the potential corruption going on with respect to Election Theft in Broward and Palm Beach Counties. The WORLD is now watching closely!
Outgoing Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the GOP Senate nominee locked in a tight and bitter battle for the lead against incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, accused Democrats of conducting a coordinated effort to "steal" elections in a campaign of possibly "rampant fraud," in a lawsuit Thursday.
Razor-thin margins in Florida's bitter Senate and gubernatorial races are raising the specter of possible recounts, potentially prolonging two of the most closely watched contests of the nation's midterm elections. A recount is mandatory if the winning candidate's margin is less than 0.5 percentage points when the first unofficial count is verified Saturday by Florida's secretary of state, according to state law.
In an emergency complaint, Scott accused Snipes of being "unwilling to disclose records revealing how many electors voted, how many ballots have been canvassed and how many ballots remain to be canvassed," and charged that the uncertainty "raises substantial concerns about the validity of the election process."
More than 50 percent of voters in the county are registered Democrats, making it the largest Democratic county in Florida, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
Snipes said she didn't know how many ballots remain to be counted, but all were being processed. She also did not know how many provisional, military and mismarked ballots need to be counted. Her department's website said ballots cast on Election Day have been counted.
Snipes, who has held her office since 2003, is no stranger to controversy. Earlier this year, Scott's administration said it was monitoring her office after a judge ruled in May the county broke federal law by destroying ballots in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's 2016 Democratic primary race against Tim Canova, Politico reported.
Snipes claimed the issue had been "blown out of proportion."
Broward County Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda C. Snipes is no stranger to election controversy. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
"Broward is nitpicked to the bone. Other places have the same problems, different problems. It’s just that they are not spotlighted like we are," she told the Miami Herald in October.
In August, a judge sided with the Florida GOP in its challenge of how the county handled absentee ballots. Republicans claimed Snipes' office was opening ballots in private, preventing people from challenging if they were properly cast, according to Politico.
And then in 2016, Broward County violated the law when it posted early voting results online before polls even closed, the Miami Herald reported.
The error was made by a young employee of an outside company hired by the county to tally the election results and a lawsuit against Snipes' office over the incident was "unsuccessful," according to the Miami Herald. Snipes also won a lawsuit that same year after being challenged for leaving off an amendment regarding medical marijuana on some mail-in ballots.
In 2004, her office had to scramble to send out new absentee ballots after it said some 58,000 voters did not receive them despite requesting them, the Sun-Sentinel reported at the time.
There were problems with absentee ballots this year, too. Multiple people said they did not receive absentee ballots or got them too late to submit them, according to the Miami Herald. Some ballots also had duplicate pages, voters said.
"This is consistent. It happens every election. Every election there is a snafu of some type every time," Benjamin Bennett, a former Broward elections inspector, alleged.
Snipes is also the subject of a lawsuit, filed in August by the American Civil Rights Union before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which questions Snipes' handling of potentially ineligible voters.
Broward was also criticized this year for the design of the ballot. The Senate race was displayed on the bottom left corner, below the instructions. Some 24,000 cast a vote for governor, displayed at the top of the ballot, but not Senate, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
This election, Scott has heavily criticized Broward County's handling of ballots.
"On election night, Broward County said there were 634,000 votes cast. At 1 a.m. today, there were 695,700 ballots cast on election day. At 2:30 p.m. today, the number was up to 707,223 ballots cast on Election Day. And we just learned that the number has increased to 712,840 ballots cast on Election Day. In Palm Beach County, there are 15,000 new votes found since election night," he said Thursday.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, too, unleashed a barrage of broadsides against Snipes and pointed to the "slow drip" of tens of thousands of additional ballots that were reported throughout the day Thursday, most of which were favorable to several Democratic candidates. Rubio said those late disclosures violated Florida election law, which necessitates that mail-in and early voting ballots be counted within 30 minutes of polls closing.
"Bay County was hit by a Cat 4 Hurricane just 4 weeks ago, yet managed to count votes & submit timely results," a fiery Rubio wrote on Twitter. "Yet over 41 hours after polls closed #Broward elections office is still counting votes?"
Broward County election officials did not immediately return Fox News' request for comment Friday morning.
