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Broward Voter Explains Why a Weird Ballot Helped Senator-Elect Rick Scott
Townhall.com ^ | November 12, 2018 | Myra Kahn Adams

Posted on 11/12/2018 8:55:09 AM PST by Kaslin

As a registered Republican in infamous Broward County, Florida, this writer offers two salient points regarding the ongoing recount controversy that will determine if Governor Rick Scott will become Senator Rick Scott. As of this writing, Scott is leading incumbent Senator Bill Nelson by less than 13,000 votes — a 0.15 point margin out of over eight million votes cast.

My first point is about ballot design and the second is math.

Over two weeks before Election Day I voted at my kitchen table along with over 2.6 million other Floridians who chose to vote by mail.

The ballot was five pages long. Starting on the first page in the middle column, one had the opportunity to vote for Governor, Attorney General, Chief Financial Officer, Commissioner of Agriculture, State Senator and State Representative.

After I voted for Commissioner of Agriculture, already three quarters down the long column, my eyes happened to shift to the left, and there I saw the names of U.S. Senate candidates Rick Scott and Bill Nelson.

For a nanosecond, I remember thinking that was weird placement. Furthermore, if I had been in a rush, it is entirely plausible that I could have missed the senate voting square because voting instructions in three languages comprised over half of the first column then followed by the senate and congressional voting blocks.

Fast forward to last Wednesday when the design of Broward’s ballot first made national headlines. It turned out that there were more votes cast for Chief Financial Officer than U.S. Senator.

According to the most recent voter statistics listed by Broward County’s Supervisor of Elections there are 1,174,851 registered voters.

And, when writing this piece I just noticed a discrepancy. The home page of the Broward Supervisor of Elections displays  1,182,120 registered voters, a difference of 7,269. Alert the media.

The total number of votes cast in the midterm election for the key offices are as follows:

U.S. Senate: 683,963

Governor: 708,955

Attorney General: 697,915

Chief Financial Officer: 692,970

Simple math indicates that 24,992 more Broward County voters cast ballots for governor than senator.

The Supervisor of Elections also shows that Bill Nelson received 68.9 percent of the votes compared to 30.87 percent for Rick Scott. (Not surprising given that in Florida’s second largest county, election officials are not sure if there are 1,182,120 registered voters. But if so, that includes 593,505 Democrats, 252,005 Republicans, 328,822 unaffiliated and 7,788 other.)

But here is the kicker: If those 24,992 Broward voters who voted for governor had also voted for senator, conceivably 68.9 percent of them would have voted for Nelson the Democrat. Thus, Nelson could have won 17,219 additional votes — over 4,000 more than the 13,000 by which he trails Scott going into the recount. Yikes, THAT is inconvenient math!

It is yet to be determined if the 24,992 “undervote” was a “machine calibration” issue which will be resolved in the recount or poor design is the culprit. However, I distinctly remember that nanosecond when I thought the ballot design was counterintuitive, and initially missed the Senate voting square. Thus, I believe 24,992 Broward voters could have been “disenfranchised” from voting for a U.S. Senate candidate and that I was almost one of them!

If and hopefully, when, Senator-elect Rick Scott emerges victorious from the statewide recount, and if it’s with a slim margin, he can thank the incompetent ballot design by overwhelmingly Democratic Broward County election officials for his new title.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: 2018midterms; fl2018; florida; rickscott
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To: Kaslin

The non-bullshit answer: they got pictures of us with boxes of votes taken from people’s cars, and then started auditing the vote. If they audit for duplicates and non citizens nationwide the democrats lose the house and the voters will become in a deportment dupporting mood.


41 posted on 11/12/2018 9:57:45 AM PST by MrEdd (Caveat Emptor)
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To: dp0622

That was in Belgium. They must be libtarded to the max.


42 posted on 11/12/2018 9:59:04 AM PST by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: wastoute

Thanks for correcting me.

The fact that whoever decided this against him said there was SOME kind of logic to the request is scary enough.


43 posted on 11/12/2018 10:02:32 AM PST by dp0622 (The Left should know if Trump is kicked out of office, it is WAR!)
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To: Methos8

Good point.


44 posted on 11/12/2018 10:06:06 AM PST by The people have spoken (Proud member of Hillary's basket of deplorables)
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To: dp0622

Having lived down there, and actually being (I know, an endangered species), a native Floridian, I can tell you that most of the people I’ve met down there in Broward (where I lived from 1984 to 1992) appear to have had their brains melted by the extreme heat and most of those who are long-term locals have their skinned properly cooked. I’ve seen women who were in their mid-80’s and brown, and were obviously as caucasian as can be, and yet, they had cooked. I hated shaking hands with the older people there.

We lived in a small little conservative town in the north part of Broward county.

We had a Century Village (affectionately known as Cemetary Village). There were about 30,000 residents of the retirement community. The town had 60,000 voters and about 70,000 residents. Every election cycle, we had votes that were for the Dems and Reps. It didn’t matter what we wanted. Even if you had 90% participation outside the Village, and it was 90% Republican, they still lost due to the 100% participation and 99.97% Democrat participation.

They would fill out the ballots for the retirees, had polling places inside the village, and wheel them out. Frankly, it was a voter mill. Most of the people there didn’t like the mayor, but they still voted for her. Why? Because that’s what they were told to do.


45 posted on 11/12/2018 10:08:47 AM PST by spacewarp (FreeRepublic, Rush's show prep since foundation.)
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To: gcparent
Truth is an awful lot of people are really dumb.

Don’t we know it. It’s evidenced every single day especially with leftist rhetoric. It’s sad as hell

46 posted on 11/12/2018 10:09:04 AM PST by BlueHorseShoe ( Let us all speak out, rise up, lead and conquer! IÂ’m)
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To: NEMDF

It was too difficult to figure out the party affiliations.that needed to be promently labeled for many voters in FLA.


47 posted on 11/12/2018 10:11:11 AM PST by cnsmom
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To: woodbutcher1963

South Florida? Creole.

Many Hatians.

On the west side of Miami, there’s a point, if you follow Military Trail until it dead ended at 8th Street (this was in 1990), they had a street sign in Spanish, Calle Ocho. The sign was sub-titled in Creole and sub-sub-titled in English.


48 posted on 11/12/2018 10:13:09 AM PST by spacewarp (FreeRepublic, Rush's show prep since foundation.)
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To: dp0622

Today, John Smith (age 45 or 81 depending on age or date of birth) died today of unspecified illness. He leaves behind a husband, 3 cats and a hampter with no claws. John was responsible for the Trans-agism Movement and was the first declared by the courts to be an embryo at age 35. After surviving the abortion attempt, he was declared “born” and allowed to nurse from his mother goat.


49 posted on 11/12/2018 10:17:10 AM PST by spacewarp (FreeRepublic, Rush's show prep since foundation.)
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To: Kaslin

Or, simply they made up ballots with just votes for governor.


50 posted on 11/12/2018 10:20:41 AM PST by raybbr (That progressive bumper sticker on your car might just as wll say, "Yes, I'm THAT stupid!"to)
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To: Kaslin
First, it should be easy to test this theory. The House candidates are also listed in the bottom left corner, below the Senate candidates. If there is a similar "undervote" for the House race as there is argued to be for Senator, then that might strengthen the notion that people inadvertently skipped the bottom left corner of the page.

Second, the theory makes little sense on its face. There were fewer votes cast for Senator than for Governor. If everybody who voted for Governor also voted for Senator, I would expect a similar Rep vs Dem distribution for both races, given the current political polarization and the strong trend toward less and less ballot splitting. It's hard to imagine somebody voting for both DeSantis and Nelson, or for both Scott and Gillum. So if there was a lesser undervote for Senate it is probable that Scott would have a similar lead as DeSantis, i.e., larger than he currently has, not smaller or negative.

51 posted on 11/12/2018 10:23:35 AM PST by SFConservative
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To: dp0622

If the “sample ballot” that is posted is a “true” copy of the ballot, this argument would also carry over to the Congressional race since it is listed underneath the Senate race.

If not, then Florida voters must be living in a vacuum. I hardly doubt Bill Nelson or Rick Scott didn’t run radio and TV advertising. It was top of mind in most voters in Florida. I wouldn’t be surprised if the layout was done purposely just in case they needed the under vote to help cheat and throw the election to Nelson should he run behind.


52 posted on 11/12/2018 10:24:29 AM PST by offduty
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To: Kaslin

Nothing wrong with that ballot. But if you’re too dumb to handle columnar data, maybe you’re too dumb to be voting on a more complex issue, eh? (not you personally, but the average south Florida voter)


53 posted on 11/12/2018 10:30:10 AM PST by Karma_Sherab
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To: gcparent
Truth is an awful lot of people are really dumb.

"The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill (no evidence that he actually said this but it seems to be increasingly valid today)

54 posted on 11/12/2018 10:30:45 AM PST by SFConservative
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To: raybbr
Or, simply they made up ballots with just votes for governor.

Ding ding ding!! - I think you hit on the most likely explanation.

55 posted on 11/12/2018 10:32:56 AM PST by SFConservative
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To: dp0622

“I assume they are honest about their age and name :)”

“Caitlyn” Jenner?

The 69 year old guy in Sweden(?) suing to legally list his age as 49?
Women “fudging” their ages since Adam and Eve?

There is NO reality dems won’t twist to get their way.


56 posted on 11/12/2018 10:52:33 AM PST by oldvirginian ( Buckle up kids, rough road ahead.)
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To: straps

You are reaching the spam stage.


57 posted on 11/12/2018 11:04:39 AM PST by T. P. Pole
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To: spacewarp

God Bless you.

I am so glad I live in NH where everything is in English except state entrance signs on the border with ME, VT, MA & Canada.
Welcome to New Hampshire

“bienvenue”


58 posted on 11/12/2018 11:16:17 AM PST by woodbutcher1963
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To: spacewarp

Incredible


59 posted on 11/12/2018 11:37:49 AM PST by dp0622 (The Left should know if Trump is kicked out of office, it is WAR!)
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To: Kaslin

only people that can’t speak English and mental incompetence would mess this up.. It’s quite obvious that the shill voter was trying to only vote for Governor..


60 posted on 11/12/2018 11:39:15 AM PST by tallyhoe
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