Posted on 11/17/2012 8:05:36 PM PST by smoothsailing
By James Kirley, Eric Pfahler
FORT PIERCE — The St. Lucie County Canvassing Board suspended its recount of all early voting ballots late Saturday night, saying members would return at 8 a.m. Sunday to complete the job.
The board made the announcement at 10 p.m. that it will continue tabulating write-in and provisional ballots Sunday after counting votes late into Saturday night as supporters for District 18 congressional candidates Patrick Murphy and Allen West watched the process.
Poll workers finished entering in early ballots for all precincts on Saturday evening, but the data has to be put into the computers for the final count. Also, write-ins and provisional ballots had not been counted before the security system at Orange Blossom Business Center was set to go off, Canvassing Board member Tod Mowery said Saturday.
Mowery said the data entry alone could take one or two hours.
Worn down supporters for both camps lingered inside the Orange Blossom Business Center outside the county supervisor of elections' office as canvassing board members and poll workers tabulated more than 37,000 early votes.
Murphy held a nearly 2,000-vote lead against opponent West in the District 18 congressional race.
Murphy attorney Sean Domnick said he was disappointed the votes weren't recounted by the end of Saturday night given that all of the workers were present.
“They should have it finished tonight,” Murphy attorney Sean Domnick said.
West campaign manager Tim Edson said if the process takes longer, so be it.
“Obviously we look forward to seeing the results,” Edson said. “We've been pushing for this full recount of early voting. But again, there's time to get this finished. We want to make sure it gets done right. Our goal is to make sure people have confidence that this is a fair and accurate counting.”
Suspending the recount ended a more than 12-hour day for the board that saw it played out in two different places.
While elections workers fed eight days worth of ballots into tabulating machines, lawyers for the West, Murphy, the St. Lucie County Canvassing Board and Supervisor of Elections Gertrude Walker were in Circuit Judge Larry Schack’s courtroom across town.
The Murphy campaign sought an injunction to stop the recount ordered by the county Canvassing Board Friday night, saying it was illegal. But Schack ruled against Murphy’s request to stop it.
The ruling pleased attorneys for Allen West’s campaign. It had protested last Sunday’s partial recount of three days worth of early voting, saying the recount should have included all eight days.
“Mr. Murphy’s papers filed in court today were both procedurally and substantively lacking,” West attorney Chris Winkelman said, “and for that reason the judge denied his order.”
West’s team argued that Murphy’s campaign had insufficient grounds to argue that the county’s canvassing board broke Florida law when it voted 2 to 1 Friday for Saturday’s full recount of all early votes.
Domnick disagreed.
“There is no allegation that I’m aware of, from anybody, of illegal votes or rejection of legal votes,” Domnick said. He argued the Florida Legislature passed strick statutes to limits when recounts can be demanded and these had been broken by the Canvassing Board.
“Then, we’re right back to where we were before this statutory scheme was enacted by the Legislature,” Domnick said, “and that’s allowing disappointed parties to henpeck at perceived irregularities and recount and recount and recount.”
Judge Kathryn Nelson, the dissenting vote on the Canvassing Board, had been subpoenaed by Murphy’s attorneys to testify at Saturday’s hearing. But she did not testify.
Instead, Schack ruled that Murphy’s request for an injunction to stop the recount failed to prove irreparable harm.
“If Mr. Murphy comes out on the losing end of the recount, he has adequate remedy pursuant to Florida (law),” Schack said.
Domnick said that would be to contest the election results in Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee.
But Domnick added he didn’t expect Saturday’s recount of ballots would reverse Murphy’s lead over West.
“There aren’t enough votes out there to change this,” Domnick said after the hearing. “Patrick Murphy is the winner.”
The recount, of all votes cast in early voting,not just those for District 18, was prompted by a state elections auditor finding a box of 306 early voting ballots Friday that never were counted.
It began at the Supervisor of Elections office on Okeechobee Road shortly after 11 a.m. Supervisor of Elections Gertrude Walker was hospitalized on Friday and was not at Saturday’s recount. Her administrative assistant, Annie Clark, oversaw election workers.
The Canvassing Board has a tight window to finish the recount, as it must finalize results to send to the state by noon Sunday. The state certifies all races Tuesday.
Earlier Saturday morning, Canvassing Board member Tod Mowery addressed a crowd gathered behind a barrier of orange traffic cones that separated observers from machines and election workers. About 100 people were at the elections office by 9 a.m.
Mowery confirmed the 306 uncounted ballots had been “noted” Friday by state Division of Elections officials visiting St. Lucie County. Later, he said those uncounted ballots contained one or more write-in choices that caused tabulating machines to reject them.
All those ballots were cast on Nov. 1-3, the days which had been recounted last Sunday, Mowery said.
Regardless of what happens Saturday, the Fort Pierce mayoral race should not be affected. Mowery said all ballots had been recounted Wednesday in that close race, which Linda Hudson won over Vince Gaskin.
There was a heavy presence of law enforcement officers at Saturday’s recount. Mowery said they were on site because there were open ballots in the room that needed protected.
Last Sunday, during a partial recount of early ballots, tempers flared among some observers when a lone sheriff’s deputy ordered the building cleared moments after the Canvassing Board announced Murphy still led in votes.
In addition to observers from both Murphy and West campaigns, there also was a contingent from the U.S. House Administrative Committee at Saturday’s recount. One of those observers, Mark Braden, said they had been called to Fort Pierce by the West campaign.
Braden said the District 18 contest was one of about a half-dozen races nationwide to which committee observers had been called.
On Friday, David Drury, head of the Division of Elections Bureau of Voting Systems Certifications on hand for the audit, made a “personal” recommendation the St. Lucie County Canvassing Board rerun ballots from five early voting days that hadn’t been counted last Sunday. The board decided instead to count all eight days.
On Friday, St. Lucie County Judge Dan Vaughn denied West’s motion to order a recount of all 37,379 early ballots. Vaughn ruled he didn’t have authority to call for a recount, but said his decision didn’t “bind the canvassing board from doing what they think is appropriate in these circumstances.”
That’s all I heard to. I was born after that scandal in 1960.
Thnx withhout the link they may be confusing him with Barbara Bush
The election WAS stolen, although is questionable if JFK knew much about it. That was old dad Joe's end of the business.
Joe gave huge donations in the form of checks to the Roman Catholic Church of Boston. They in turn gave him their cash receipts. He then used to untraceable money to buy off union heads in virtually every coal mine in the East Cost. He also made deals with the Mafia that if they would deliver Chicago, and thereby Illinois, he would make sure the Kennedy administration would go soft on them.
Kennedy won, mainly because Nixon decided not to fight the results or call for investigations. Old Joe had a stroke before most of this went into place. JFK appointed his brother attorney general, who immediately went after - the Mafia. And I'm sure you know the story from there on.
yep, too young to remember seeing the RFK and MLK assassination stuff on TV.
Looks like they managed to run out the clock, last card won’t read.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2960771/posts?page=65#65
Not sure what this will mean as the results has to be certified to the state.
Murphy camp declares victory due to missed deadline
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2960881/posts
Intentionally ran out the clock!
Can’t imagine the courts not getting involved now.
I agree voter fraud by the left is out of control and totally unchecked, I witnessed it personally in my county. It is true not a wacko conspiracy theory, early voting is a major contributor
Those MF’ers.
Speaking of JFK, today he would be considered a Republican and would be outraged at Democrats. He least he could freely say ‘God’ without reservations.
“today he would be considered a Republican”
He started pretty much at the center and was drifting towards the right. I’ve often wondered how much better things might have been if he had been allowed a second term. Much of the unsustainable debt we have today is due to idiot programs started by that idiot LBJ.
While I am sorry that we didn’t see more of JFK, I can’t say the same thing about his two younger brothers.
our Gov needs to get some balls and stop this madness.
It is clear that massive fraud has taken place, then add all the corruption from these counties.
Thee counties have mostly people form the north and a lot of illegals, they embarass our state and the gov needs to sort this crap out.
I;m sick to death of our side minus ColWest just ignoring th eelfts corruption.
Gov Scotts number, to all please call.
850) 488-7146
The Bay of Pigs betrayal was one of JFK’s biggest blunders but he was a Saint compared to his SCUMBAG predecessors.
that is whya gets me about our side.
Some don;t want to say anything becauswe they tink th eleft and media will call them a name and so they say lets move on etc.
Their voter fraud now has reached a massive scale so much so that the Dem controlled counties can now rob a national election.
Since 2000 the left have been out of control with elections, they;re corrupt and our side hasn;t done a damn thing except every now and again say we need ID.
Well we have found out here in this race alone republican votes not counted.
They tried to stop a recount
they missd the dead line on purpose
they left their voting stations open for two days extra in violation of state law
they only inforemd Dems to vote those two days
They gave out ballots to people in line without checking ID in violation of state law
They have found duplicate ballots which were counted.
They threw out republcian observers
They then formed a barried around the ballots so republican observers were told they can observe and be allowed back in.
We have a disgraced election
and the media and the left and the idiots on our side say move on.
WTH.
How could anyone on the left have no shame and look at themselves in the mirror?
Why hasn;t the woman in charge down there not been arressted yet, it is obvious she stole and corrupted this election.
Now look at this, Mia Loves election in UT
Then look at results in WI, VA, FL, OH.
The Dem counties here had some of the lowest turnouts, obama got less than 5000 days before in Tampa and yet we are told he won thta area!!!
There should ne a full investigation, not just re-counts because those illegal votes will still be counted but voters cross ref with voter registrations and lets see how many votes were illegal, duplicates etc
Here is hte number to Gov Scotts office
850) 488-7146
here is the turn out and you’ll see Broward had the 4th lowest turn out and that shows why obama kept goijng to his base counties now, he knew he did not have the voters in his base let alone those non party votes.
http://enight.elections.myflorida.com/CountyReportingStatus/
I’m sick of it too. All over the Country, rolling over for the MSM and libs.
sorry for the typo’s, wish we had an edit button.
I called the Gov office and the woman told me she had not heard of any corruption down here.
Really, !! She is either ignorant or just wants to ignore this and do no work.
How much more of this corruption do we have to take till our side actually grows a set.
I was out earlier on my horse thinking baout this election and how the left have destroyed our election process and how our side have become cowards.
Since Reagan, I was a little kid back then our side have been led by the left and the media on all issues, social certainly but also now fiscal.
I;m sick of it and how the left have made this country
It’s nauseating. Since I’m still a Lady, I won’t type what I’m really thinking.
I’d love to post what I think about the left too
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