A Circuit Court Judge in St. Lucie County today denied Florida’s Republican Rep. Allen West’s motion to order a re-tally of all Early Voting ballots in the county, after a partial re-tally of Early Votes last Sunday resulted in the disappearance of some 800 votes in the FL-18 U.S. House race between West and Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy.
It the second denial for West, a “Tea Party” favorite, in a Florida court room, where he had previously filed a motion to impound paper ballots and voting systems before all ballots had even yet been run through them.
Today, according to the Palm Beach Post, “Circuit Judge Dan Vaughn said he did not have the authority to issue an injunction ordering the recount.”
“In denying West’s motion,” the paper said, “Vaughn noted the [St. Lucie County] canvassing board is considering the issue at a meeting this afternoon. The judge also said that West has other legal remedies – specifically mentioning a statute that allows a candidate to contest an election within 10 days of the final certification of results. That certification is scheduled for Tuesday.”
Murphy’s attorney argued in response that there was “no basis for a full recount of early votes and if the canvassing board orders a full recount of them, the Murphy campaign will go to court to try to block it.”
“If the canvassing board were to decide that they want to do that without any evidentiary basis to do so, we’ll be back before your honor with a motion for injunctive relief against them doing it because under the law the statute that we cited for your honor they have absolutely no right to do it,” the Post quotes Murphy attorney Gerald Richman as arguing in court today.
No “evidentiary basis”? Really? A partial selection of ballots — just the last three days of eight days of Early Voting — are re-tallied by the same machines that tallied them originally, but give a completely different result the second time they are tallied and that isn’t “evidentiary basis” for re-tallying all of the votes? If that isn’t a basis for a full public hand-count of all ballots, I’m not sure what is. Unfortunately, without a court order, thanks to the state’s Republican legislature following the 2000 Presidential Election debacle in that state, it’s illegal to hand-count paper ballots once they’ve been tallied by an electronic machine.
[Update: See bottom of story for update on what happened at the canvassing board on Friday, and much more!]I was on Thom Hartmann’s TV show, The Big Picture, last night to discuss the FL-18 U.S. House mess where West currently trails Murphy by a very slim margin, according to oft-failed, easily-manipulated, paper ballot optical-scan computers made by three different private companies in the three different counties that make up Florida’s newly redistricted 18th Congressional District.
As we’ve covered in detail here at The BRAD BLOG, a margin of some 2,400 votes out of some 330,000 votes tallied as of last Friday was dwindled down to just under 2,000 votes as of last Sunday when St. Lucie County — one of the three, along with Martin and Palm Beach Counties, that make up FL-18 — carried out a partial re-tally of Early Voting ballots due, they say, to an unexplained “issue” on the Diebold optical-scan systems used to tally those ballots in the county.
In the bargain, some 800 votes seem to have disappeared according to the new Diebold tally. Both candidates lost votes in that partial re-tally — where they ran the same ballots through the same machines, which counted them differently this time than they did previously — but West ended up gaining some 500 votes on Murphy in the bargain.
Nonetheless, at this time, West is still some 250 votes shy of a mandated state “recount” which is triggered when the margin is .5% or less. Currently, the margin is just eight one-hundredths of a percentage point shy of that mark, at .58%, with West having filed his court for an expanded re-tally of all Early Voting ballots in St. Lucie earlier this week. While his court motion had called for a full re-tally of all Early Votes in St. Lucie, the motion failed to request a re-tally of either Election Day votes, absentee ballots or any of the ballots in FL-18’s other two counties, for unexplained reasons (the West campaign has not replied to our queries on that) as we also discussed on Hartmann’s show…
West did file an amended complaint this morning before the hearing, seeking a re-tally of absentee ballots in St. Lucie as well, after the campaign claimed they had found “significant problems” with the records for some of those votes, charging that the number of absentee ballots in some precincts exceeds the number of voters listed as casting absentee ballots there…
There is no credible evidence, at this time, that either candidate or the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections office is attempting to “steal” the race, as both campaigns have now begun to argue. While West’s campaign and his supporters have blatantly charged the election was being “stolen” (without presenting any evidence to back up that claim), Murphy and his Democratic supporters haven’t been been much more helpful.
For example, FL Rep. and DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz slammed Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott today, after his hand-picked Sec. of State Ken Detzner dispatched Division of Election inspectors to look into what may have gone wrong with the tabulation systems in St. Lucie.
“In a clear effort to overturn an election result after having lost at the ballot box, Allen West has now run to [Mr. Scott] to needlessly interfere with and politicize a non-partisan election process,” Wasserman Schultz said, according to the Washington Times.
Another Florida Democratic Congressman, Rep. Alcee Hastings, echoed Wasserman Schultz, charging that Scott’s actions were “yet another blatant display of his willingness to disregard the rule of law for political gain.”
Look, far be it for us to defend the reprehensible Scott and Detzner — or even the extremely controversial, far Rightwing West in any matter. The BRAD BLOG has been relentless over the past year in calling out both Scott and Detzner for their shameful, anti-American attempts to game this year’s election by restricting voting and voter registration and trying to toss eligible voters off the rolls, resulting in even active-duty military voters getting purged. All while, the pair ignored actual, massive voter registration fraud carried out by the Republican Party of Florida itself (until it could no longer be ignored) and, recently, Scott, absurdly, assigned Detzner, of all people, to head up a “review” of all that went wrong this year in Florida’s elections — thanks, of course, mostly to Scott and Detzner themselves!
Nonetheless, given the disastrous way in which the tallying of ballots has so far played out in FL-18, where nobody — no matter what they claim in either court, or the court of public opinion — has any idea who actually won and who actually lost this race, thanks to the failed computer tabulation systems we’ve been warning about for nearly a decade — it’s perfectly appropriate to dispatch members of the state Division of Elections to oversee the disaster still under way in St. Lucie County.
Democrats, it seems, are doing the very same thing that Republicans notoriously do when they come out ahead by a slim, and completely unverified margin on Election Night and then attempt to discredit Democrats for seeking a full, transparent count of ballots.
This is not about either Democrats or Republicans. This is about the voters. And they deserve to know, for certain, who has actually won or lost the race.
What we noted earlier this week in the conclusion of our previous piece on this very fine, if completely predictable, mess, is still true…
This is what The BRAD BLOG has been warning about for nearly a decade, and will continue to do so, at least until this nation is smart enough to move to Democracy’s Gold Standard: hand-marked paper ballots, publicly hand-counted at the precinct, on Election Night, in front of all parties and all video-cameras, with results posted at each precinct before ballots are moved anywhere.
Without that, there are sure to be many more West/Murphy clouds to come, as democracy continues to erode in a country that once regarded itself as the “World’s Greatest Democracy”.
If either West’s supporters or Murphy’s wish to truly settle this matter, they will each call for a full, public, transparent hand-count of all of the paper ballots cast in all three counties that make up FL-18. Then they just have to hope that a) the secure chain of custody for those paper ballots has been well-documented since Election Night and b) that the margin is larger than the number of ballots cast on the 100% unverifiable touch-screen systems used by disabled voters for accessible voting in the three counties, since it’s impossible to ever know if even one of those votes was recorded as per any voter’s intent.
For more specific details on the disastrous records and long history of failure of the electronic voting and tabulation systems used in each of the three FL-18 counties, please see our first article on this post-election mess. For more details still, on the specific problem with the Diebold op-scan system and its memory cards in particular — said to have been responsible for whatever led to the problem that required a re-tally of three days of Early Voting ballots in St. Lucie — see our second article on this disaster.
UPDATE 11/19/12: It was a wild, wild weekend in the FL-18 election debacle. Insane, in fact. The latest update, including details on St. Lucie County’s seven hour Canvassing Board meeting on Friday, the discovery of 306 previously-untallied Early Voting ballots, two days of new “retabulation” over both Saturday and Sunday, the hospitalization of the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections and much more, is now posted here…
Nice work, Brad. Mark another one up for fairness and consistent application of principles.
http://protectourelections.org/...hp?q=node/1107
thoughts???
Brad, remember Anonymous’ warning to Rove? Have you seen THIS? http://www.scribd.com/doc/11337...on-Rove-Letter
This might explain Rove’s insane meltdown on Fox election night, and Romney’s inexplicable confidence. I never believed the media meme that they actually believed the skewed pols in the “bubble”. Those pols were cover for the election heist that wasn’t.
1Watt and TksABunchJohn –
Yup. Saw it. Without being able to authenticate any of it, frankly, I’m loathe to give it much credence. Make of it what you will.
well hell, at least let a fella dream.
Anonymous claims that it stopped Karl Rove and Project ORCA from stealing the election
Did Anonymous stop Karl Rove from Stealing Ohio again?
I believe the Judge in St. Lucie did the right thing. If you give this deranged person an inch he’ll take a mile. He won’t stop until he gets the count he wants. He doesn’t give a flip about “fair”.
If he was on the winning end of a bad count you wouldn’t hear crap from him. At this point it’s impossible to get a 100% correct count.Murphy has been consistently ahead by a small margin. Leave it at.
West is a sniveling coward. Hopes if he refuses to concede he’ll slither back in. West doesn’t care about accuracy. He’s like the rest of the GOP fraudsters who tried to steal the election.
Brad, your work as always is the best. But in this case something smells. If West won by 2000 votes would he be asking for a recount? Hell No! He should conceide this race first then ask for a recount to check the accuracy of the system. We should all support that.
Why are there no penalty ever for the machines that fail?
I actually hope he does keep contesting it, because I am confident that Alan Grayson will win, but anything that calls attention to any voting problems in Florida is a good thing, IMO.
Unfortunately, none of the bickering is about how we should all distrust the machines, but rather, about distrusting the people involved. It is incomprehensible that Florida would continue to use these machines, after all the trouble they have had there, all very well documented on this site. While you are supporting a hand-recount of all of the ballots, it seems that something in the water in Florida prevents anyone from being sensible about any of this -sigh.
Thanks, Brad, for your consistent and evenhanded advocacy of the gold standard. Also, you are doing the right thing concerning Anonymous: remaining focused on your true path, while Anonymous remains on his. If he did what he said, heartfelt thanks from this grateful but computer-clueless voter, and godspeed. But if we had the gold standard, our voting system would not need clandestine protection, and Anonymous’ brilliance could be engaged in other ways.
1Watt @ 5:
By all means, dream on! 🙂
Don Knuttel @ 10 said:
Would you support the Democrat Patrick Murphy doing that if he had been down by less than 2000 votes (out of 330,000 cast) after faulty voting machines miscounted at least 800 votes out of a tiny sample re-tallied?
Also, remember, a “concession” is meaningless. It has no legal ramifications. It only helps to ensure the media no longer pay attention to the race. There is a legal time envelope for when elections can be contested in court (after X date and before Y date.) West seems to be moving along those parameters, while trying to take extra measures in court, so far unsuccessfully, to call attention to legitimate concerns that have arisen about the election tally to date.
Good question. For the most part, the answer is because there is no such penalty written into law. There are some requirements that voting systems must meet written into the Help America Vote Act of 2002, but there are no penalties, to my knowledge, written into the law to hold anyone accountable when/if those requirements aren’t met.
At the same time, you have an entirely toothless U.S. Election Assistance Commission which is supposed to create a national clearinghouse database of such failures, yet they have never done so. Moreover, they are the body responsible for certifying voting systems, but they have nothing written into their procedures about UNcertifying a system once it’s been certified, and then shows evidence of failure in an election. So bad systems stay certified and in use no matter what.
It’s a complete disaster, as we’ve documented here going on ten years at this point. 🙁
The Real Obama Gifts @ 11 said:
Well, me too, cuz West isn’t running against Grayson — whose election is not being contested — he’s running against Patrick Murphy 🙂
Good article from the UK about vote stealing and the need for counting paper ballots:
http://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/...icle20598.html
To Brad,
In comment #15 you state: ” … faulty voting machines miscounted at least 800 votes out of a tiny sample re-tallied?”
But, over the course of years, literally, you have already explained why this is meaningless.
WHY believe ANY number generated by electronic vote counting? Isn’t the issue: which number is MORE incorrect, the original count or the re-tally?
As to the “unexplained” re-tally: isn’t this the only basis for West’s challenge?
Disclosure: I vigorously support “full, public, transparent hand-count of all of the paper ballots cast in all” counties of the United States.
I predict that whoever is declared the winner of FL18 will NOT push for universal hand counting of ballots.
Parts are parts.
I think the point is that NO TALLY that goes through these pathetic machines can be trusted, period.
I hope beyond all hope that this nutbag West loses as he is quite literally insane.
On a side note, I think we all owe Anonymous a great deal of gratitude as it appears as though they have saved us from total destruction.
We may not be able to positively prove what they say is true here however looking at the evidence and weighing it against what we do know for a fact.
It makes by far the most sense that in fact Rove tried to steal the election as was thwarted.
That explains why he was so adamant and shocked and insane that night, explains why Rombot was shell shocked and didn’t bother to even write a concession speech amongst several other odd behaviors of which all are explained by the Anonymous announcement.
So I for one will believe they saved us as it makes the most sense.
We all know that Rove certainly was going to try to steal it, there is no other explanation as to why he didn’t get away it.
The democrats would have done absolutely nothing.
Best update: The canvassing board ordered 2-1 for a recount of all eight days of early voting. Now we have three different versions of the truth now> 1.) time ran out, and so did West’s chance of winning owing to our laws which mandate if a recount is not complete by noon today the last result stands. 2.) West’s version of the truth that he still believes the count should go forward and the governor can order it and 3.) the SOE’s version which says they DID complete their count on time, and West still lost.
Let’s see, you demand a recount, it proves you lost even worse than the original results and you still won’t admit it. Definitely someone from the Romney, Rove camp… Hell I bet West still thinks he will win Ohio!!!!!
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/...-harder/59117/
does anon. have documentation of hack? can he duplicate hack?
Update:
“Murphy declares victory after recount, West campaign future undecided”
http://tinyurl.com/c7hqy68
West is clearly insane and I would not doubt that he “goes congressional” the new “going postal” since virtually all of the Tpublicans in congress are all stark raving insane.
I suspect he will be going to the top of the Washington Monument with a sniper rifle soon.
They should really keep an eye on him.
Allan West has a bachelors degree free on the GUBMENT, masters degree free on the GUBMENT, 30 year career job on the GUBMENT, with retirement for life on the GUBMENT, and with career health care for his family for life on the GUBMENT.
This is mostly white Florida’s fault for not following Obama’s black socialist example get to keep his career lifetime welfare entitlements.
Black Socialists like this poor man will now probably have to get a real free market job and have to work for a living.
This man of course with 30 years on the GUBMENT $$$ had the nerve to call Obama a socialist who wants everything paid for by the GUBMENT.