The Midterms: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[Cartmann99]

I'm having hanging and pregnant chads flashbacks. ?

[AuntK]

44 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

I'm having hanging and pregnant chads flashbacks. ?

Yep, me too. And the Broward County supervisor was appointed by none other than former Gov. Jeb Bush, after the debacle in 2000, the "hanging chad" election. She subsequently won re-election, but she has had numerous screw-ups in office. And yes, unfortunately, she is a Democrat.

[SassyPants]

2 hours ago, AuntK said:

The problem is Palm Beach & Broward are two of Florida's biggest counties and are heavily Democratic. We NEED those votes! And these are also the counties that screwed up and gave us George Bush.  I'm hopeful, because I believe if they actually count ALL the votes, Nelson and Gillum will win. The question remains, will they be allowed to count them all?

And both of these counties need new Supervisors of Elections!

But if there's an automatic recount for these ballots because they meet the legal, differential threshold for a recount, how does Rick Scott have a case? Isn't the trigger for a senatorial recount in FL a vote count differential of less than 0.5%? If so, and the current differential is 0.3% (IIRC) doesn't that automatically trigger the recount???? And if you're going to recount 1 portion of the ballot, why not just recount the other 2 candidate races that are also very close and in question???

[WiseGirl]

Not sure where to put this.

[fraurosena]

I wasn’t quite correct in my previous post about where the missing ballots were:

(I hope the link works)

Here’s the article itself:

https://itk.thehill.com/homenews/campaign/416038-dozens-of-mail-in-ballots-sitting-in-miami-distribution-center-report

[AuntK]

18 hours ago, SassyPants said:

But if there's an automatic recount for these ballots because they meet the legal, differential threshold for a recount, how does Rick Scott have a case? Isn't the trigger for a senatorial recount in FL a vote count differential of less than 0.5%? If so, and the current differential is 0.3% (IIRC) doesn't that automatically trigger the recount???? And if you're going to recount 1 portion of the ballot, why not just recount the other 2 candidate races that are also very close and in question???

I just saw that the Florida Secretary of State's office ordered a machine recount of the governor's race and Senate race, along with Commissioner of Agriculture race. 

Everything you say is true, but Florida's Sec. of State is Republican, I don't trust any of them. I honestly do not believe all the votes in Florida got counted because of incompetence, as well as the different methods of voting, different machines, and 67 supervisors of elections. The voting system is a f'ing mess and should be completely revamped. Of course, that would mean a couple of screwed-up elections until all the kinks got ironed out, but anything is better than this mess.

And the deplorables are already rumbling about what will happen if the Dems win! ?

[fraurosena]

How good is that? 15 NRA A-rated repugliklans replaced with 15 F-rated Democrats.

Democrats Plan to Pursue Most Aggressive Gun-Control Legislation in Decades

Quote

Democrats say they will pass the most aggressive gun-control legislation in decades when they become the House majority in January, plans they renewed this week in the aftermath of a mass killing in a California bar.

Their efforts will be spurred by an incoming class of pro-gun-control lawmakers who scored big in Tuesday’s midterm elections, although any measure would likely meet stiff resistance in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Democrats ousted at least 15 House Republicans with “A” National Rifle Association ratings, while the candidates elected to replace them all scored an “F” NRA rating.

“This new majority is not going to be afraid of our shadow,” said Mike Thompson, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. “We know that we’ve been elected to do a job, and we’re going to do it.”

Mr. Thompson, who represents a district in the Napa Valley north of San Francisco, said he plans to introduce legislation mandating universal background checks in the opening weeks of the new Congress.

The gun-control movement’s evolution was evident this week following news that a dozen people had been killed Thursday at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

While in the past there were calls for time to mourn victims following mass shootings, this week advocates reacted instead with a call for new legislation.

Susan Orfanos, whose son was killed Thursday after surviving the Las Vegas massacre last year, said in a television interview that she doesn’t “want prayers. I don’t want thoughts. I want gun control, and I hope to God nobody sends me anymore prayers.”

Opponents of new gun laws say additional restrictions are unnecessary.

Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican whose victorious Senate campaignTuesday was backed by $2.5 million in spending by the NRA, was asked on Fox News what can be done to prevent gun violence like the Thousand Oaks shooting.

“What we do is say, how do we make certain that we protect the Second Amendment and protect our citizens?” Ms. Blackburn replied, referencing the U.S. Constitution plank that grants the right to bear arms.

About 61% of voters participating in the 2018 midterm elections said America’s gun laws should be stricter, according to AP VoteCast, a pre-election and Election Day survey of about 90,000 people who said they voted or intended to vote. About 13% of Democrats and 8% of all voters said gun control was the most important issue affecting their vote.

The 2018 elections marked the first time gun-control advocates outspent the NRA.

The gun-rights advocacy group spent about $20 million in the 2018 election cycle—much of it on advertising backing the confirmation of Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said.

Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun-control organization backed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and a group founded by former Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically wounded in a 2011 shooting, spent a combined $37 million in 2018.

Ms. Baker said she is optimistic NRA-backed candidates will prevail in governor’s races in Florida and Georgia that have yet to be called. The NRA also invested in GOP Senate candidates who ousted Democratic incumbents in Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota. NRA-backed Senate candidates lost in Montana and West Virginia.

“The biggest Second Amendment implication of the election is that the pro-Second Amendment majority in the U.S. Senate will continue to confirm pro-Second Amendment judges to the lower courts all the way to the Supreme Court,” Ms. Baker said.

At the state level, voters in Washington state approved a ballot referendum expanding the state’s requirement for background checks on gun purchases. In Florida, Democrat Nikki Fried leads the race for agriculture commissioner, whose office regulates the state’s concealed weapon permits.

The highest-profile gun-control advocate on the ballot Tuesday was Democrat Lucy McBath, who defeated GOP Rep. Karen Handel in a suburban Atlanta House contest. Ms. McBath, a former Delta Air Lines flight attendant, became a gun-control advocate after her teenage son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed in 2012 by a man who said the boy was playing music too loud. The assailant was later convicted of murder.

Ms. McBath, who became a spokeswoman for Everytown and a 2016 campaign surrogate for Hillary Clinton, relayed her story on the campaign trail and in her early television advertisements. But in the closing weeks before Election Day, Ms. McBath focused on health care and economic issues.

Everytown’s closing TV ad backing Ms. McBath didn’t mention gun control, focusing instead on health care. “Voters absolutely understood where Lucy stood on the issue of gun safety,” said Everytown President John Feinblatt. “There was no question in voters’ minds about Lucy’s story.”

 

[AuntK]

Andrew Gillum has withdrawn his concession, which actually has no legal consequences,  but the deplorables are arguing that there should be no recount because he conceded. Idiots!

And, in other news, there appear to be THOUSANDS of ballots in mail boxes at the Opalocka ( Florida) Mail Center. Unfortunately,  the mail-in ballots are supposed to be in the possession of the supervisor of elections by Election Day. This mail center was one of the places where the pipe bombs were processed. I don't know how that affected operations there, but it is questionable as to whether these ballots will even be counted. 

This shitshow is just ridiculous.

[AuntK]

This country needs a uniform nationwide voting system.  I don't care if it is paper ballots that take a month to count; we need something that cannot be hacked by foreign powers, manipulated by corrupt officials or just screwed-up by incompetent officials/pollworkers. 

In Florida, pollworkers are volunteers that are paid a small sum daily, but, they're usually elderly, and have little training.  I can easily see one of them leaving a box full of ballots behind at a polling place, like the box that was found in a school storage closet.

And if the state election official is running for office,  s/he should be required to resign from his/her position as an election official IMMEDIATELY upon filing for office! There's no telling how much damage Brian Kemp did in Georgia, disenfranchising thousands of voters before he was forced to resign! Georgia needs a complete do-over. Maybe Florida does too, with all those mail-in ballots sitting at the USPS.

 

[fraurosena]

An inside look at how voter suppression works in Porter County, Indiana. 

 

[Ozlsn]

9 hours ago, AuntK said:

This country needs a uniform nationwide voting system.  I don't care if it is paper ballots that take a month to count; we need something that cannot be hacked by foreign powers, manipulated by corrupt officials or just screwed-up by incompetent officials/pollworkers. 

That was one of the things that surprised me the first time I travelled to the US in October 2000. Up until then I'd kind of assumed that the balloting system and the organisation structure was not dissimilar to Australia. I quite honestly was shocked that there appeared to be no equivalent body to Australian Electoral Commission which organises everything to do with federal elections from maintaining electoral rolls to defining districts (roughly 600-650,000 people per district) to the nitty gritty of staffing polling places. There are also state electoral commissions that run state elections and cover a similar role. I was very surprised at the sheer variety in voting systems - we still use paper ballots (some over a yard long last election - bloody vanity parties) and pencil, although they are moving to electronic for voters with visual impairment I believe. We did have gerrymandering in one state for state electorates in the 70s-80s but that got squashed down on hard after a judicial Inquiry into corruption. I'm not saying the system is perfect by any means - we have had challenges and missing votes and logistical issues at various times, but the AEC is still one of the more respected independent government bodies. We have an election coming up soon actually - for the third election running I will have to pre-vote as I will be interstate on the day. I swear they wait for me to book a flight or accommodation.

[fraurosena]

Alas, paper ballots don't always work either.

 

[SassyPants]

5 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

That was one of the things that surprised me the first time I travelled to the US in October 2000. Up until then I'd kind of assumed that the balloting system and the organisation structure was not dissimilar to Australia. I quite honestly was shocked that there appeared to be no equivalent body to Australian Electoral Commission which organises everything to do with federal elections from maintaining electoral rolls to defining districts (roughly 600-650,000 people per district) to the nitty gritty of staffing polling places. There are also state electoral commissions that run state elections and cover a similar role. I was very surprised at the sheer variety in voting systems - we still use paper ballots (some over a yard long last election - bloody vanity parties) and pencil, although they are moving to electronic for voters with visual impairment I believe. We did have gerrymandering in one state for state electorates in the 70s-80s but that got squashed down on hard after a judicial Inquiry into corruption. I'm not saying the system is perfect by any means - we have had challenges and missing votes and logistical issues at various times, but the AEC is still one of the more respected independent government bodies. We have an election coming up soon actually - for the third election running I will have to pre-vote as I will be interstate on the day. I swear they wait for me to book a flight or accommodation.

The only special or uniform about our federal elections process is the presence of an electoral college- AND it needs to go, IMO.

[fraurosena]

Happy dance time! 

Putin’s Favorite Congressman Has Lost His Re-Election

Quote

Russian President Vladimir Putin will now have one less defender in Congress. Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California—who famously arm-wrestled with Putin in the 1990s and was warned by the FBI in 2012 that Russian spies were trying to recruit him as an “agent of influence”—has lost his reelection bid after two decades in Congress, succumbing to a Democrat who ran ads touting Rohrabacher’s curious affection for the Russian autocrat.

While election officials won't certify the results of the race until December 7, Democrat Harley Rouda declared victory Saturday morning, leading Rohrabacher by about 8,500 votes, according to the Associated Press. Now, with Democrats set to take control of the House in January, Rohrabacher’s Kremlin ties could face renewed and intensified scrutiny.

Rohrabacher’s loss wasn’t necessarily a surprise. He consistently trailed Rouda in polls and was seen as vulnerable heading into election night. Locally, Rohrabacher tried to appeal to California voters by playing up his support for reforming marijuana laws , calling states’ rights to legalize and regulate the drug “a fundamental issue of federalism and freedom.” And he talked about the economy and immigration, the latter in inflammatory terms. Rohrabacher told The New York Times last year that his constituents “couldn’t care less” about Russia.

Paul Martin, a Republican who challenged Rohrabacher in the June primary, told me he believes that the congressman’s defeat in California’s 48th district was more a reflection of voters’ desire for a moderate candidate than their frustration with Rohrabacher’s coziness to the Kremlin.

“I made my campaign about the gruesome human-rights abuses of Putin, especially his suspension of the adoption of Russian orphans after the passing of the Magnitsky Act,” Martin told me, referring to Putin’s retaliatory measures after Congress passed a 2012 law designed to sanction high-level Kremlin officials. “But I’m not sure the voters here cared.” (A spokesman for Rohrabacher was not immediately available for comment.)

Rouda similarly went after Rohrabacher. He accused the lawmaker in a debate last month of "meeting with Russian operatives” in 2016, and criticized him for downplaying Russia’s election interference. "Representative Rohrabacher has said that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies that were staffed by working men and women from diverse backgrounds, including our U.S. military ... were all wrong," Rouda said, “and that the Russians had nothing to do with meddling with our elections."

On the national stage, Rohrabacher has become best known for his defense of Putin’s leadership. A fierce Cold Warrior in the 1960s who later worked for Ronald Reagan, Rohrabacher had a dramatic change in attitude toward Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. By 2014, he was publicly excusing Putin’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine—viewed globally as a major breach of international law—and characterizing Russia, which had recently placed anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny on house arrest, as a bastion of free speech and Christian piety.

“There have been dramatic reforms in Russia that are not being recognized by my colleagues,” Rohrabacher said at the time. “The churches are full. There are opposition papers being distributed on every newsstand in Russia. You’ve got people demonstrating in the parks. You’ve got a much different Russia than it was under Communism, but you’ve got a lot of people who still can’t get over that Communism has fallen.”

Rohrabacher has attracted attention more recently for his involvement in the congressional and federal investigations of Russian election interference. After Democrats take over the House inquiry in January, Rohrabacher’s relationships abroad—not only with Russian government officials, but also with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange—could be more closely examined. Like President Donald Trump, Rohrabacher has downplayed the significance of Russia’s interference and claimed in March that the U.S., too, has “tried to influence their elections, and everybody’s elections.” And he’s called Assange, who gave Russia a platform to disseminate stolen emails from prominent Democrats via WikiLeaks, a “very honorable man.” He tried to strike a deal with Trump that would exonerate Assange in exchange for supposed evidence that Russia wasn’t WikiLeaks’s source for the hacked emails.

His defense of Russia has attracted negative attention even from those within his own party. “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader, said during a closed-door meeting of the chamber’s leadership in 2016 that was secretly recorded and leaked to The Washington Post. (McCarthy said later that he was joking.)

Further digging into Rohrabacher’s history could help illuminate a major moment in the Russia investigation: the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials, including the campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Rohrabacher could provide a key link to understanding the Kremlin’s role. On a trip to Moscow in April 2016, a few months before the meeting, Rohrabacher obtained a memo about the Magnitsky Act and Putin critic Bill Browder from the office of Russia’s chief federal prosecutor, Yury Chaika. Rohrabacher also dined with Veselnitsksya on that trip. Later, at the Trump Tower meeting, Veselnitskaya provided a nearly-identical memo to the Trump campaign, indicating that she was not an independent operator but rather a representative of Russian government interests. She later admitted to being an “informant” for the Kremlin.

Rohrabacher also had considerable  influence on Capitol Hill as the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats. Upon returning to Washington, D.C., from his Moscow trip in April 2016, Rohrabacher circulated the memo he obtained and tried to organize a screening of a film that attacked Browder and the Magnitsky Act, according to The Daily Beast. He also tried to get Russia’s deputy general prosecutor, Victor Grin, removed from the U.S. sanctions list in 2016—a move that prompted Browder to file a complaint with the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Rohrabacher testified before the House Intelligence Committee last year about his communications with Assange and with Russian nationals during the 2016 election, but Republicans have declined to make Rohrabacher’s transcript public. That could change by early next year. Democratic Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, who sits on the committee, told me last month that while Rohrabacher’s testimony did not contain “a missing link to understanding the Russia investigation,” there were some “wild and woolly moments” that the American public could benefit from reading. “When something is hidden,” Himes said, “it understandably raises questions.”

 

[fraurosena]

Ehhhhh....

 

[AuntK]

8 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Alas, paper ballots don't always work either.

 

I see Brian Kemp's fingerprints all over this!

[GreyhoundFan]

"Rick Scott’s slimy claim of fraud"

Spoiler

Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s apparent victory over incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) was one of Democrats’ bigger disappointments on Election Day. But the margin was close enough to trigger an automatic recount, and since Tuesday, Scott’s lead has narrowed from 56,000 votes to just more than 12,000 votes. So, in a preview of the toxicity Scott (if he wins) will bring to Washington, he deployed a standard GOP response when Democrats gain votes: accuse them of voter fraud.

“Sen. Nelson is trying to commit fraud to win this election,” Scott told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” Naturally, Wallace asked if Scott had “any hard evidence” of fraud. Scott had no answer, other than stammering that two counties “came up with 93,000 votes after election night. We still don’t know how they came up with that.” Scott didn’t mention that Florida election law allows counting until the Saturday after Election Day. He also didn’t mention that Florida’s Department of State and Department of Law Enforcement both have said they have not received any allegations of fraud.

One irony here is that Scott has been governor for eight years, which means he’s had the ability to fix Florida’s election system that he now implies is broken. In particular, conservative voices have criticized Broward County election supervisor Brenda Snipes for lack of transparency in the vote-counting process. But there’s a long record of voting difficulties and election law violations under Snipes’s tenure, going back more than a decade. (Because of that, additional Department of State staffers had already been assigned to Broward County on Election Day.) So it’s a little rich for Scott and his allies to complain about Snipes now — when, again, there’s no hard evidence of fraud — even though Scott could have suspended her for legitimate reasons years ago.

Another irony: Scott is familiar with fraud. In 1997, the U.S. government announced it was investigating health-care company Columbia/HCA, of which Scott was CEO, to see whether it had falsely billed the federal government and states for Medicare, Medicaid and other programs’ expenses. Scott resigned several months after the investigation became public; according to Politifact, “Company executives said had Scott remained CEO, the entire chain could have been in jeopardy.” The company ended up paying $1.7 billion in fines, at the time a record for a Medicare fraud, and still one of the largest penalties in history.

If Scott wants an example of how to behave with late-counted ballots, he can just look to Arizona. There, late votes have expanded Republican Martha McSally’s deficit in her U.S. Senate race with Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. But McSally, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and other Republican state officials have refused to fan fraud claims or other conspiracy theories. Lest anyone doubted this is a deliberate campaign to undermine the legitimacy of election results, Politico reported Friday, “Top officials with the White House and Republican National Committee, who’ve been prodding the McSally campaign to amp up its efforts, have expressed frustration that the Arizona congresswoman hasn’t tried to drive a message that there’s something amiss with the vote count.”

But rather than reject conspiracy theories that undermine faith in the electoral system, Scott has opted for slime. “I’m going to be going to D.C., and I’m going to do exactly what I did in Florida, try to change the direction of the country, like we tried to change the direction of Florida,” Scott said Sunday. His behavior since Tuesday has proved that his version of “change” won’t be better for the country.

 

[AuntK]

8 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Rick Scott’s slimy claim of fraud"

  Hide contents

“I’m going to be going to D.C., and I’m going to do exactly what I did in Florida, try to change the direction of the country, like we tried to change the direction of Florida,” Scott said Sunday. His behavior since Tuesday has proved that his version of “change” won’t be better for the country.

 

Gag me.

Scott clearly was the "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Medicare/Medicaid fraud case. He took the Fifth 75 times in a depo in a civil case that was occurring during the FBI investigation of Columbia/HCA. of which he had been CEO.

I have no doubt he will try the same shit in Washington. Stripping money from education, environmental agencies, enriching himself and his friends. He is supposed to have increased his net worth by $200M while Governor. Oh, and he tried to impose mandatory drug testing on ALL state employees and welfare recipients, despite the fact it had been ruled unconstitutional and there was no evidence of drug use in those groups. And guess who owned the company that would perform the testing?

As far as his claims of fraud, his attorneys aren't even making that claim in court! He is a Trump toady & I hope to God, he loses in the recount. 

[AuntK]

Saw this on Twitter -

Florida: "We have the WORST voting procedures in the country."

Georgia: "Hold my beer."

[Cartmann99]

 

[keen23]

Well, maybe Arizona is getting better than expected. Perhaps we are going purple for real instead of red. Even moderates willing to give Ducey (ugh) another chance were not willing to vote for McSally. She was unliked by just about everyone outside of the hard core Republican base.

[GreyhoundFan]

Because of course he did: "Trump calls for halting recounts in Florida races for governor and Senate"

Spoiler

TALLAHASSE — President Trump on Monday called for halting the just-launched recounts in the Florida races for Senate and governor, alleging without evidence that many ballots were missing and forged and that a valid tally was no longer possible.

In a morning tweet, Trump suggested the results from the night of the election should stand, handing victories to fellow Republicans Rick Scott in the Senate race and Ron DeSantis in the gubernatorial race.

“The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged,” Trump said in a tweet that misstated what Florida officials have concluded. “An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!”

Ballots from overseas and military voters have until Friday to arrive to be counted.

Trump’s tweet came as Florida officials conducted recounts in three statewide races amid accusations of fraud by Republicans but no evidence of criminal conduct, according to the Florida secretary of state’s office, which is led by a Scott appointee.

The recounts are occurring in accordance with Florida law because of the tight margins in the vote count.

On Sunday, Scott took to national television to accuse Sen. Bill Nelson (D), whom he is hoping to unseat, of trying to “commit fraud to try to win this election.” His campaign said it had filed lawsuits against Brenda Snipes and Susan Bucher, the election supervisors in Broward and Palm Beach counties, two Democratic strongholds. Democrats called it desperation by a candidate sitting on a precarious vote lead.

Scott made his comments in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” that came after his lead shrank to fewer than 13,000 votes in a race with national stakes. State officials said they have no evidence of criminal conduct in the still-unresolved Senate election.

Pressed on his fraud claim, Scott referred to a lawsuit Nelson has filed to reexamine ballots with signature issues. He also mentioned an incident, being reported by conservative media, in which a lawyer claiming to represent Nelson objected in a public hearing to tossing out a provisional ballot from a noncitizen.

Nelson’s lead recount attorney, Marc Elias, said in a statement that the lawyer at a meeting of election officials in Palm Beach County was “not someone we had authorized to make such an objection. Non-citizens cannot vote in U.S. elections.”

In a separate television appearance on Monday, Scott called Nelson a “sore loser” and alleged that “he’s just here to steal this election.”

Election administrators are racing against the clock to ­machine-recount ballots ahead of a Thursday deadline to present their findings, with many of the state’s 67 counties beginning the task Sunday. A more logistically complicated hand recount could follow. The contest will determine the size of the GOP’s Senate majority and settle an expensive fight in the nation’s largest swing state.

That race, as well as the closely watched gubernatorial contest between former congressman DeSantis (R) and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum (D), have attracted national attention, pitting candidates with sharply contrasting messages and embodying broader disputes between the two major parties during the Trump presidency.

On Saturday, Secretary of State Ken Detzner, a Scott appointee, formally ordered recounts in the races for Senate, governor and agriculture commissioner.

In the Senate contest, Scott’s lead over Nelson has narrowed to 12,562 votes out of more than 8 million ballots cast, or a margin of 0.15 percent, according to an unofficial tally Saturday from the state. State law mandates a machine recount if the margin is half a percentage point or smaller.

The governor’s race also has tightened, with DeSantis, a staunch ally of President Trump, ahead of Gillum by 0.41 percent. If it holds, the margin would fall short of the 0.25 percent threshold for a more involved manual recount.

If the margin in the Senate race holds, however, it would be slim enough to trigger a hand recount. In that scenario, officials would have three days to personally inspect ballots with overvotes or undervotes — ballots on which the voter selected no candidate or more than one candidate in the race — provided there are enough to change the outcome. That could spark disputes over whether the voter intended to mark it that way or not.

The election results are slated to be certified on Nov. 20. Newly elected senators are expected to report to Washington this week for orientation. Scott said he has not decided his schedule yet. The Senate will swear in new members in early 2019.

There remains plenty of uncertainty about the path forward. Delays and new legal disputes that could slow the pace of the proceedings are possible.

A lawsuit filed by Nelson seeking another look at absentee and provisional ballots with signatures that don’t match voter registration records will be heard by a federal judge this week and could have a major impact on the election’s outcome.

The machine recount itself will be time-consuming. In Broward County, it could take more than 30 hours just to sort through the pages with races that need to be recounted, according to election operations coordinator Fred Bellis.

GOP criticism of vote counting has centered on Broward and another Democratic-leaning county in South Florida — Palm Beach, where Republicans cited the incident over the ballot involving a noncitizen. The Republicans have upbraided officials there for tallying ballots slowly and not providing enough transparency about their process.

In its new lawsuits against Snipes and Bucher, Scott’s campaign seeks to have authorities “impound and secure all voting machines, tallying devices, and ballots when not in use until such time as any recounts, election contests, or litigation related to the 2018 general election for the office of United States Senator are complete.”

The Scott campaign filed another lawsuit asking that ballots counted in Broward County after a noon Saturday deadline to submit results not be included in the county’s official returns.

In an interview, Snipes denied that she missed the noon deadline. “There’s no rampant fraud here,” she said. Amid some Republican complaints about a recount delay, Snipes vowed, “We’ll make the deadlines if we have to work 24 hours a day.”

Nelson said Scott was operating from a position of desperation.

“If Rick Scott wanted to make sure every legal ballot is counted, he would not be suing to try and stop voters from having their legal ballot counted as intended,” the senator said in a statement. “He’s doing this for the same reason he’s been making false and panicked claims about voter fraud — he’s worried that when all the votes are counted he’ll lose this election.

Broward and Palm Beach counties have come under legal pressure and scrutiny. Last week, judges ordered officials in Palm Beach County to open their canvass to public inspection and Broward officials to release documents the governor had demanded.

Snipes has been the subject of controversies and criticism in the past. In 2016, she was accused of destroying physical ballots while saving digital copies during a lawsuit, a violation of a federal statute.

Last week, Scott called for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the voting in South Florida. The agency has not embarked on a probe, because the Department of State has not presented any allegations of fraud, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement, Jeremy Burns, said Sunday, repeating what he had previously said..

State Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Republican, sent a letter Sunday to FDLE Commissioner Richard Swearingen saying that she was “troubled” that he was not pursuing probes into irregularities, adding, “Your duty to investigate this matter is clear.” She also wrote Detzner to remind him to report signs of criminal activity.

Sarah Revell, a Department of State spokeswoman, said: “Department staff continues to observe the administration of the election in Broward County. Our staff has not seen any evidence of criminal activity in Broward County at this time.” She added that the department’s “top priority is a fair and accurate election.”

Gillum said he has a team of hundreds of volunteers and lawyers fanning out to ensure the recount process is, in his estimation, fair and accurate. He hosted a “count every vote” event at a church in Broward County on Sunday afternoon.

Scott’s campaign said this weekend that it has enlisted 7,500 volunteer recount representatives to monitor the process. Scott also has encouraged sheriffs to watch for any violations.

 

[TuringMachine]

Reading comments in support of Kemp are making me so mad. 

To them, Kemp disenfranchising black people and blatantly rigging the election = good for democracy
Abrams making sure all votes are counted = bad for democracy

#republicanlogic

[GreyhoundFan]

YES! "Sinema wins in Arizona as Democrats capture a longtime GOP Senate seat"

Spoiler

Democratic Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema scored a win in Arizona over Republican Martha McSally, flipping a longtime Republican seat and narrowing the GOP’s majority in the upper chamber.

Sinema, a three-term congresswoman, overcame attacks on her more liberal record as an Arizona state legislator and committed to a bipartisan approach in a race that hinged on issues such as health care and illegal immigration. Her defeat of McSally will make her the first woman senator in Arizona’s history.

Two other Senate races remained unresolved on Monday: the close contest in Florida between Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and a runoff scheduled for Nov. 27 in Mississippi pitting appointed Sen. Cindy Hyde Smith, a Republican, against Mike Espy, a Democrat.

McSally, a freshman member of the House, lost the race after abandoning the moderate profile she had nurtured in her 2014 congressional race and allying herself with President Trump. The former Air Force combat pilot adopted an aggressive tone, accusing Sinema of supporting treason over her 2003 remark that it was “fine” if a radio host who was asking her a question joined the Taliban.

Sinema won by 38,197 votes, and the Associated Press projected her as the winner Monday. She will replace Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

It was unclear what will happen to the state’s other Senate seat, which is currently held by Republican Jon Kyl. Kyl was appointed to replace the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and has not commited to serving past this year.

It is possible Republican Gov. Doug Ducey appoints McSally to the seat.

 

[Howl]

There is so much in this tweet that is squarely in the good category.  

1. It's a speech conceding that a Democrat won
2. It's a a gracious concession speech 
3. It's a gracious concession speech from a woman to a woman opponent
4. THAT DOG!!!!!!!!!!  O.M.G. The dog!