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At a press conference Thursday evening, Florida Governor Rick Scott – who is also the Republican nominee in the US Senate in the state – said without providing any evidence that he could have rampant fraud in both counties and accused Democrats of trying to "steal" the election.
Scott's campaign and the Republican National Senate Committee filed two lawsuits Thursday, one against Brenda Snipes, the Broward County election supervisor, and the other, Susan Bucher, the election supervisor. from Palm Beach County. The lawsuits allege that the supervisors have not been transparent about either the gathering of votes or the counting of votes, in violation of Florida law.
Snipes told CNN that she was not aware of Scott 's announcement of a lawsuit and that she was making no comment.
At his press conference, Scott accused election officials of "mysteriously" finding votes and called for an in-depth "law enforcement" investigation, promising to "get the ball rolling." initiate any necessary legal action.
"Tonight, I am asking the Florida Law Enforcement Department to immediately investigate this case, and review all available legal options," Scott said.
"We've all seen the incompetence and irregularities seen in the voting charts at Broward and Palm Beach for years now, so here we go again," said Scott. "I will not sit idly by while unethical Liberals are trying to steal this election from the great people of Florida."
The campaign for Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, Scott's opponent, said the governor's actions appeared to be "politically motivated".
"The goal here is to see that all votes in Florida are accurately counted and counted," said Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin. "The action of Rick Scott seems to be politically motivated and born of despair."
Democratic governor candidate Andrew Gillum tweeted in response to Scott: "Counting votes is not partisan, it's democracy, count every vote."
President Donald Trump then spoke tweeting: "Law Enforcement is investigating another big bribery scandal related to election fraud at #Broward and Palm Beach, Florida voted for Rick Scott!"
Scott made his blister statement at the Governor's mansion in Florida. His role as Chief Executive Officer will undoubtedly raise issues of conflict of interest.
He did not answer questions during the press conference.
Divergences in Broward County
His press conference comes amid questions about differences in voting results in Broward County.
An analysis of the votes cast by CNN in Broward County suggests that the design of the ballot could be at the root of a substantial difference in the number of votes cast between the governor's bid run and the that of the senator in Florida, which means that thousands of voters have missed their chance to vote. to weigh on the still indecisive race in the Senate. The location of the Senate race on the ballot could have gone unnoticed.
Broward and Palm Beach counties became infamous for their vote counting problems during the 2000 presidential count.
Feeding controversy on Thursday, a teacher said she found a box marked "provisional ballots" in a school storage area long after the vote took place on Tuesday.
Lakeisha Sorey, a senior teacher at Sunshine Elementary School and a teacher in Broward County Schools for 16 years, said it looked like a plastic storage bin with a hole on the top and a printed label carrying it. "provisional ballots" on the card. During a telephone interview with CNN on Thursday night, she stated that she had taken a picture but that she had not tried to open or lift the box because she did not want questions.
"I did not touch it," she says. "I knew the elections were a federal affair, so I did not want any of those issues, I did not want there to be interference."
Dozel Spencer, director of the equipment center for Broward County election voters, told CNN that it was equipment, no ballots. He added that the pickup of equipment takes several days after polling day.
Broward is a county with a democratic tendency. Of those who voted in the Senate race, 69.1% supported Nelson, while 30.9% supported Scott. The governor candidate, Gillum, overtook former Republican representative Ron DeSantis in the county by a similar share of the vote (68% for Gillum to 31.3% for DeSantis), but he got about 10,000 additional voice of the county.
Nelson trains Scott in the Senate race with about 15,000 votes nationwide, and the race is likely to be an automatic recount because the margin is so narrow.
Overall, on Thursday, nearly 25,000 constituents of the county voted for the governor but did not vote in the senatorial elections, according to an analysis of the results obtained at CNN polling stations. The shared photos on Twitter of the ballot used at Broward show the races for the Senate and the county congressional districts in the lower left corner of the ballot, under long instructions on the voting procedure. Candidates for governorship were more clearly to the right of the instructions.
In the nearby city of Miami-Dade, where a sample of ballots put online suggests that the Senate race was ranked high, there were more votes cast for the Senate than for the governor. With over 23,000 votes, Broward is the biggest difference between the votes cast between the two races in the 67 counties of the state.
In the 547 constituencies in the county where both the Senate race and a Congressional race were included, a comparison of the total number of votes cast in the governor's race and the Senate and Congressional races shows an almost identical decrease for both. Federal races in 127. among them, that is to say that almost all the constituents of those constituencies who gave up the race in the Senate also gave up the race in Congress.
This suggests that these voters may not have seen both races in the lower left corner of the ballot. In all ridings in which Senate and congressional elections are held, about 3% of people skipped the vote in the Senate even though they had voted for the governorship.
In the part of the state represented by Democratic Representative Frederica Wilson, who ran unopposed, it is likely that no race in the House appeared on the ballot because Florida law does not require not that votes are counted in unopposed ballots. That would leave the Senate race in the lower left corner of the page.
In ridings in this congressional district, the drop rate was even higher, with about 10 percent of those voting in the governor's race not voting for the Senate.
"Broward County is the laughing stock"
Sorey, the teacher who found the front side tagging "provisional ballots," said Broward County needed to improve its management of ballots.
"We need to put all our efforts together, especially in Broward County," Sorey said of the electoral system.
After finding the box at elementary school, Sorey contacted her friend, Democratic State Representative Shevrin Jones, who attended Harvard Kennedy School's senior executive program with Sorey's husband.
Jones called the Broward Election Department. When he informed the election official about the ballot box labeled "provisional ballot papers", he stated that his telephone interlocutor had told him that it merely contained a "ballot". .
Jones said that he did not understand how the Election Officer could know what was the contents of the box, nor why this box seemed to be locked, without someone checking it physically.
"I do not know how they could determine that there is nothing in the box just from images that they have seen or just from my conversation with them," he said. Jones in a phone interview Thursday night.
Jones said that no one from Broward County Elections had reminded him to tell him if the box had been checked or picked up.
"He could still be in the storage area," Jones said. "It's so confusing, it's so bad."
"There must be a better way to manage our electoral process, especially now," Jones said. "We are 48 hours after the election and we are in a total mess and it is unfortunate that we are in this situation, Broward County is the laughingstock of the country."
Correction: This story has been updated to correctly reflect the fact that the two most publicized races of the state seem to be heading for a recount, and not a runoff as originally reported.
Rosa Flores and Ryan Nobles of CNN contributed to this report.
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