Florida Official Overseeing Vote Count Destroyed Ballots, Accused of Not Removing Dead Voters from Rolls

Brenda C. Snipes, Broward county supervisor of elections, grimaces during a news conferenc
AP Photo/David Adame
John Binder

The Florida official put in charge of counting votes in Broward County — the most liberal county in the state — for the gubernatorial and Senate race previously destroyed voter ballots, a judge ruled, and was most recently accused of not removing dead voters from the voter rolls.

Broward County Board of Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes is in charge of vote counting in the area and has yet to disclose how many ballots are still not counted despite the election for governor and Senate occurring two days ago.

Currently, in the Senate race, Republican Rick Scott is leading Democrat incumbent Bill Nelson by more than 20,000 votes. Nelson is hoping for a blowout in Broward County to push him over the edge for re-election.

Snipes was confronted by local media about why the vote count in Broward County has taken so long.

“Could I please get a moment to go into the room and find out?” Snipes asked the group huddled around her. “OK, when I come back I’ll let you know.”

“But, Dr. Snipes, it is now Thursday,” Weinsier said. “We are still counting ballots in Broward County.”

“We’re counting five pages or six pages for each of the people who voted,” Snipes said.

“But other counties have been able to do it,” Weinsier said.

In May, a judge ruled that Snipes had violated state and federal law after she destroyed voter ballots in the state’s 2016 congressional election. In the race, former Democratic National Convention (DNC) Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz won re-election by less than 7,000 votes against Democrat primary challenger Tim Canova.

The next year, when Canova asked to review the paper ballots in the race, it was revealed that Snipes destroyed the ballots only 12 months after the primary. Federal and state law mandates that ballots not be destroyed until 22 months after an election.

The case exposed that Snipes’ staff had opened ballots in private in 2016 on election day.

Just last year, Snipes’ office was taken to federal court by the American Civil Rights Union, represented by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, after being accused of keeping felons, noncitizens, and dead voters on the voter rolls in Broward County and at one point allegedly having more voters on the rolls than actual voters in the county.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) blasted the slow-moving vote counting in Broward County and the fact that Snipes — despite her scandals — is in charge of the process.

“Broward election supervisors ongoing violation of Florida law requiring timely reporting isn’t just annoying incompetence,” Rubio posted online. “It has opened the door for lawyers to come here & try to steal a seat in the U.S. Senate & Florida Cabinet.”

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly named the plaintiff in American Civil Rights Union v. Brenda Snipes as the Trump administration. 

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. 

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