I can understand the Democrats’ desire to prove that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes is not one of them. No one would want to claim responsiblity for Snipes because she is a walking disaster. Whether there is any truth to the sworn statement that she ordered election workers to fill in blank ballots in 2016, there is no doubt that Snipes “accidentally mixed more than a dozen rejected ballots with nearly 200 valid ones” in the electoral crisis currently playing out in Florida.
But the real reason Dems are eager to cast Snipes as a Republican is to erase suspicions that they are pushing hard for the recount effort purely as a means to electing two Democrats who lost — far-left gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Gillum and veteran Sen. Bill Nelson.
So what evidence is cited by MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell and others to support their contention that Snipes is a Republican. She was appointed by former Governor Jeb Bush, who is a Republican. Here’s Mitchell:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
[S]he was put in by a Republican governor after the mess that we all remember from 2000. And she’s hardly a Democratic official, or someone doing the bidding of the democratic candidates there.
But there are several problems with this statement. First are the circumstances under which Bush hired her. According to the Sun-Sentinel:
Gov. Jeb Bush removed Snipes’ predecessor, Miriam Oliphant, in 2003 after a disastrous 2002 election in which polls opened late and closed early after experienced senior staff had been fired by Oliphant and replaced by friends and acquaintances with little or no experience.
[…]
The removal of Oliphant had been a political firestorm, with a Republican governor removing Broward’s only countywide black Democratic official. Bush replaced her with another black female Democrat, possibly defusing some of the tension.
That Democrat’s name is Brenda Snipes.
Then there is the matter of buyer’s remorse. Yes, Bush appointed Snipes, but he surely regretted his decision when with each passing election, she violated another election law. Some examples:
- In 2004, approximately 58,000 mail-in ballots were not delivered to voters, leaving election officials rushing to send out new ones.
- In 2012, nearly 1,000 uncounted ballots were discovered a week after the election.
- In 2016, election results were posted on the elections office’s website before polls had closed.
Finally, if the liberal media are going to argue with a straight face that Brenda Snipes is a Republican because Jeb Bush appointed her, then they owe their listeners and readers the whole truth. Yesterday Bush tweeted this message:
There is no question that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians’ confidence in our electoral process. Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts.
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) November 12, 2018
