A federal judge slammed Florida on Thursday for repeatedly failing to anticipate election problems, and said the state law on recounts appears to violate the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that decided the presidency in 2000.
“We have been the laughing-stock of the world, election after election, and we chose not to fix this,” U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said in court.
Walker vented his anger at state lawmakers but also Palm Beach County officials, saying they should have made sure they had enough equipment in place to handle this kind of a recount. Walker also said he’s not happy about the idea of extending recount deadlines without limit.
Meanwhile, embattled Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes went on CNN to defend herself on Wednesday — and ended up humiliated.
Brenda Snipes, asked if her corrupt history has bearing on her illegal ballot handling in FL:
"I've been a Democrat all my life. In this position I've been very focused on party bc I want to treat all voters the same."
Snipes then rambles incoherently about how great she is ?!? pic.twitter.com/Y2m2RURJjE
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 14, 2018
A total of six election-related lawsuits are pending in Tallahassee. Earlier Thursday, Walker ordered that voters be given until 5 p.m. Saturday to show a valid identification and fix their ballots if they haven’t been counted due to mismatched signatures.
Florida’s 67 counties have faced a 3 p.m. Thursday deadline to finish recounts that could determine the next senator and governor in one of America’s top political battlegrounds. Republicans said they would immediately appeal.
State officials testified that nearly 4,000 mailed-in ballots were set aside because local officials decided the signature on the envelope didn’t match the signature on file. If these voters can prove their identity, their votes will now be counted and included in final official returns due from each county by noon Sunday.
Meanwhile, the controversial recount threatens to stretch into the weekend.
The election supervisor in Palm Beach County, a Democratic stronghold, said they may not meet Thursday’s deadline.
More than a week after Election Day, an immediate resolution seems remote.
Once the machine recount is complete, state law requires a hand review of races with margins of less than 0.25 percentage points. This almost certainly means another recount in the Senate race, with unofficial results showing Republican Gov. Rick Scott ahead of Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by 0.14 percentage points.
Also, the election won’t be certified until Tuesday, even though the machine recount may essentially bring a conclusion to the governor’s race, where Republican Ron DeSantis leads Democrat Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points in unofficial results.
Republicans say in their lawsuits and motions that Democrats are trying to change the rules again after the voting didn’t go their way.
“We will continue to fight to defend Florida law and uphold the will of the voters,” said Chris Hartline, a spokesman for Scott.
Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have argued that voter fraud threatens to steal races from the GOP.
Just when state officials will get recount results from all counties remains unclear. Tallying machines overheated earlier this week in Palm Beach County.
That caused mismatched results with the recount of 174,000 early voting ballots, forcing staffers to go back and redo their work.
The county’s Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said the machines underwent maintenance right before the election, but “I don’t think they were designed to work 24/7.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article