Florida Recount in Senate Race?

[carpedm9587]

I actually thought I remembered this from several election cycles ago.

But here is an AP news source...

Did you read it? It seems to clearly state that all of these claims are about "office supplies" - including bank provisional ballots.

[carpedm9587]

And here is a Miami NBC affiliate who says the boxes were marked "provisional ballots" but only contained office supplies for the voting locations.

Elections officials say boxes labeled with the words "provisional ballots" that have shown up around Broward County contain offices supplies used on Election Day and are not used to collect actual filled-out ballots.

Broward supervisor of elections attorney Eugene Pettis says the boxes contain office supplies and a red envelope for polling places to use for any provisional ballots. Provisional ballots are cast when someone votes without identification or their eligibility cannot immediately be verified by elections officials.

Pettis says provisional ballots are sealed inside the envelope and sent separately to the supervisor of elections' office. The box is then loaded with office supplies and dispatched to the same office but does not contain any ballots.

One such box found at an elementary school was opened for reporters. It contained only the office supplies.

Additional boxes were found late Sunday in the back of a returned rental car at the Fort Lauderdale airport. Broward Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright says deputies transported them back to the proper office.

That is also what I am finding.

My interpretation is that the blog/alternate site network is buzzing with conspiracy theories - which the experienced reporters are finding to be "much ado about nothing."

But folks here are certainly anxious to jump on any conspiracy theory that fits their "Florida bad" and "Liberals dishonest" theme...

[Cow Poke]

Did you read it? It seems to clearly state that all of these claims are about "office supplies" - including bank provisional ballots.

That's what I said!

And here is a Miami NBC affiliate who says the boxes were marked "provisional ballots" but only contained office supplies for the voting locations.

[carpedm9587]

That's what I said!

"And here is a Miami NBC affiliate who says the boxes were marked "provisional ballots" but only contained office supplies for the voting locations."

Our posts crossed in the mail....


...don't get your knickers in a knot...

[Starlight]

My interpretation is that the blog/alternate site network is buzzing with conspiracy theories - which the experienced reporters are finding to be "much ado about nothing."

And unfortunately it's being fueled by Republicans (Rick Scott, Marco Rubio, Trump) who keep making wild claims of fraud with zero evidence. I would say that of all Donald Trump's many, many, many lies, the most damaging to the nation is to undermine democracy by claiming electoral fraud based on no evidence and trying to sabotage vote counting just because his preferred candidate looked like they were winning on the initial count.

Notably, Trump's latest call for simply going with the election night results, would mean that military ballots are not counted... Happy Veterans Day!

[Cow Poke]

Notably, Trump's latest call for simply going with the election night results, would mean that military ballots are not counted... Happy Veterans Day!

The military ballots were already "not counted" when Gillum conceded.

[Starlight]

The military ballots were already "not counted" when Gillum conceded.

The price of fish is $19 / kg.

Care to post something relevant?

[Cow Poke]

The price of fish is $19 / kg.

Care to post something relevant?

You first!

[lilpixieofterror]

And unfortunately it's being fueled by Republicans (Rick Scott, Marco Rubio, Trump) who keep making wild claims of fraud with zero evidence. I would say that of all Donald Trump's many, many, many lies, the most damaging to the nation is to undermine democracy by claiming electoral fraud based on no evidence and trying to sabotage vote counting just because his preferred candidate looked like they were winning on the initial count.

Notably, Trump's latest call for simply going with the election night results, would mean that military ballots are not counted... Happy Veterans Day!

[citation needed]

[Starlight]

The military ballots were already "not counted" when Gillum conceded.

Maybe you don't understand the basics?

A candidate conceding is purely a public relations thing - it has zero legal force and ballot counting continues as normal and all votes are counted and states produce final vote tallies etc. The candidate that legally wins is the candidate with the most votes at the end of that process, regardless of whether they have conceded or declared victory.

Trump is literally calling for the state to stop counting the ballots and declare the legal victor of the race to be the person who had the most votes based on the counts at the end of election night. This would mean both that any ballots received later (e.g. military postal votes) were never counted by any person or machine and also that they had no influence whatsoever on the legal outcome of the race in terms of which candidate won. It would also, of course, mean that quite a large number of regular ballots were not counted since it takes longer than election night to count all the ballots.

In case you don't know: It can often take weeks or even months to actually count all the ballots depending on what resources had been allocated in terms of machines and personnel to the counting process. Usually the media outlets "call" many races on election night, but this is not the end of those races, it is a prediction about who the final winner of those races is going to be once all the votes have eventually been counted based on existing data. This can make it look as if 99% of races are fully counted on election night, but actually they are not: Counting for those races continues over the following days and even weeks until all votes are tallied and the final count declared, it is simply that the media stops bothering to report on those counts because it's obvious who's going to win based on the data already counted.

[Tassman]

I think we should put Florida in the corner and tell them they can't vote until they can stop trying to cheat all the time.

Florida Judge Says He's Seen No Evidence of Wrongdoing in Vote Count

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...oting-machines

The rest of the nonsense is no more than the standard Trump inspired conspiracy theories. No surprise there.

[Cow Poke]

Maybe you don't understand the basics?

I actually do. But thanks for pretending to teach - it probably makes you feel important.

[Cow Poke]

And there's this...

TALLAHASSEE

As counties recount ballots in three statewide races and lawyers battle over the complex vote tallying in court, the top elections official in Bay County said he allowed some displaced voters to cast ballots by email or fax after Hurricane Michael hit the Panhandle, even though there is no provision for it in state law.

Bay County Supervisor of Elections Mark Andersen said Monday that 11 ballots were accepted by email and 147 ballots were domestically faxed in, though state statute does not allow emailed ballots and faxing in ballots is only permitted for military and voters overseas.

[Starlight]

11 ballots were accepted by email and 147 ballots were domestically faxed in, though state statute does not allow emailed ballots and faxing in ballots is only permitted for military and voters overseas.

Not a lot of ballots. ~shrug~ Some judge somewhere will be deciding the validity of receiving them through such methods and whether fax counts as post for the purposes of the law etc. All these little edge cases tend to end up in the courts, and they have interminable arguments over whether the signatures match or the chads are hanging...

Personally I tend towards the view that the existence of a democracy itself implies a constitutional right to vote, and that in turn implies that so long as any voter has made their intentions clear then said vote should be counted, period. Any law that would limit the ability to acknowledge and count votes that people have attempted to cast, I would declare unconstitutional. But obviously I'm not the judge, and the courts will decide whatever it is they decide in these cases. It will be a bit depressing if Florida once again descends into bickering over individual votes like this rather than the winner winning by many thousands of votes.

[carpedm9587]

Not a lot of ballots. ~shrug~ Some judge somewhere will be deciding the validity of receiving them through such methods and whether fax counts as post for the purposes of the law etc. All these little edge cases tend to end up in the courts, and they have interminable arguments over whether the signatures match or the chads are hanging...

Personally I tend towards the view that the existence of a democracy itself implies a constitutional right to vote, and that in turn implies that so long as any voter has made their intentions clear then said vote should be counted, period. Any law that would limit the ability to acknowledge and count votes that people have attempted to cast, I would declare unconstitutional. But obviously I'm not the judge, and the courts will decide whatever it is they decide in these cases. It will be a bit depressing if Florida once again descends into bickering over individual votes like this rather than the winner winning by many thousands of votes.

So there is much hay made about this. Many assert that there is no "positive right to vote" asserted in the constitution. However, both the 15th and 26th amendments begin with, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged..." It certainly seems to me that the constitution is asserting a right to vote and then identifying criteria that cannot be used to abridge the right.

Of course, calling out a handful of things that cannot be used to abridge the right also implies that the right can be abridged by other criteria not specifically named. So RumTum's citizenship test, as far as I can tell, would be perfectly constitutional.