Dems seek to overhaul voting rules in Florida legal fight (Unbelievable)

Democrats see a series of lawsuits in Florida’s bitter recount fight between Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Gov. Rick Scott (R) as an opportunity to achieve a years-long goal: reshaping how ballots are evaluated and counted in the nation’s largest swing state in 2020 and beyond.

While most of the lawsuits are centered around the recount, some Democrats see the effort as a chance to change some of the standards governing how ballots are assessed in the Sunshine State, potentially widening the pool of countable votes.

That could carry implications for future elections by forcing local and state officials to tally votes they otherwise would invalidate under current standards – an outcome they hope will improve their electoral chances in a must-win state known for its unpredictable politics.

“A lot of these lawsuits might not even be primarily motivated by the Senate race. If you look across the board, it looks very unlikely that there are even enough ballots at play,” said Michael Morley, an assistant professor at the Florida State University College of Law.

“Even if Sen. Nelson were to run the table and win all the lawsuits, I don’t think there are enough ballots here to change the outcome,” he added. “I think a lot of this is clearing the underbrush for the 2020 election.”

To be sure, Democrats still see a win by Nelson as necessary in their bid to limit Republican gains in the Senate ahead of 2020, when the GOP is expected to face a less favorable electoral map.

Scott currently leads Nelson by only 0.15 percentage points after a machine recount, throwing the race into a manual recount that must be completed by Sunday.

But multiple Democrats privately acknowledged the three-term incumbent likely faces long odds in toppling Scott in the final recount.

The lawsuits filed by Nelson and his allies, however, could have implications beyond the 2018 contest.

Most of the litigation pursued by Democrats seeks to include tens of thousands of ballots that risk being rejected under Florida's existing standards and procedures.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who’s overseeing most of the cases, sided in part with attorneys for Nelson and the Democratic Executive Committee of Florida on Thursday, granting some voters who had their mail-in or provisional ballots rejected because of mismatched signatures an additional two days to fix the errors.

But he stopped short of granting Democrats’ broader request to invalidate Florida’s signature-matching requirement and order that all ballots with mismatched signatures be tallied.

The most prominent is a Democratic suit that seeks to invalidate Florida's current rules requiring an exact match of the signature in the ballot.

To a degree I will agree with you, but Nixon played a huge role in that too. Why do I say that? Because of his attempts to cover up Watergate, he turned a 3rd rate burglary into something much larger.

It was something both sides were guilty of doing, trying to get information as to what the opposition party was up to. Most of the time it required illegal, or at best unethical measures to accomplish. The Republicans managed to get caught, and Nixon made it worse than it should have been.

That was the turning point of the press to the Democrat party. So from that point on they were afraid to do anything that would make the Democrats retaliate in kind when they were in power, for they had the press on their side.

Republicans had not held the majority in the House for forty years, since the 83rd Congress (elected in 1952). Republicans only controlled 4 years of both House and Senate from 1933 to 1995.

In the 1994 midterm elections, large Republican gains were finally made in state houses as well, when the GOP picked up twelve gubernatorial seats and 472 legislative seats. In so doing, it took control of 20 state legislatures from the Democrats. Prior to this, Republicans had not held the majority of governorships since 1972. So in addition, this was the first time in 50 years that the GOP controlled a majority of state legislatures.

In a 1981 lawsuit to stop the RNC from engaging in certain practices at the polls, the Democratic National Committee attested that in a New Jersey gubernatorial election, the RNC had sent sample ballots to communities of color, and then had the names for each ballot returned as undeliverable removed from voter rolls. Democrats also alleged that the RNC hired off-duty cops to patrol majority-minority precincts, wearing “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands. These details were enough to secure a consent decree between the two party organizations and the court in 1982, stopping the GOP from engaging in such voter-intimidation practices. That decree was finally lifted this year, 2018, after 35 years.

So you can see why the Republican Party has been gun shy as the saying goes. The GOP was reluctant to pull on Superman's cape so to speak. They had been out of power for a long time, the press was on their side, and even the courts ruled against the Republican Party.

But it's way past time that the Republicans find their backbone to start fighting back against this blatant fraud & corruption in the election process promulgated by the Democrats.

But it's is way past time for them to fight back, before they totally destroy this country.

Thank you for taking the time to fill in these details, Robert.

I guess I am to the point where I don’t see the value in continuing to do the Democrat vs. Republican “thing” anymore.

As an aside, I recall reading that someone had once asked the Queen what she thought of socialism, fascism, communism, etc. To which she replied words to the effect that it didn’t matter what system was in place, that Royalty was an oligarchy and was above it all.

To me, that says the global ruling oligarchs will prosper regardless of what system is in place, and what “leaders” are in government positions.

In fact, by having the plebs be caught up fighting each other, it serves as a convenient distraction while they enrich themselves at our expense.

I have now come to apply that same concept to Democrat vs. Republican. While battles are fought among the “lessers”, the common man gets poorer and less free, while the Democrat-Republican politician’s global handlers get richer. (until Trump!)

Read this from Florida :

Unaltered Document:

Altered Document:

Let's read the article AGAIN:

... The altered forms surfaced in Broward, Santa Rosa, Citrus and Okaloosa counties and were reported to federal prosecutors to review for possible election fraud as Florida counties completed a required recount in three top races. But an email obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK - Florida shows that Florida Democrats were organizing a broader statewide effort beyond those counties to give voters the altered forms to fix improper absentee ballots AFTER the Nov. 5 deadline. Democratic party leaders provided staffers with copies of a form, known as a "cure affidavit," that had been modified to include an inaccurate Nov. 8 deadline. One Palm Beach Democratic activist said in an interview the idea was to have voters fix and submit as many absentee ballots as possible with the altered forms in hopes of later including them in vote totals if a judge ruled such ballots were allowed. ... An email that Jennifer Kim, Florida Democratic Party’s central deputy field director, sent Nov. 7 to party workers instructing them how to give voters an altered form to fix signature problems with their absentee ballots after the state deadline. Kim’s email shows this is a statewide effort to give voters the altered form with the wrong deadline to return it. The altered forms have turned up in several counties and have been turned over to federal prosecutors to review for possible election fraud. ... State Democratic Party Chair Terrie Rizzo wrote on a private Facebook page that efforts to fix ballots should be focused on provisional ballots, which were handled separately with a Nov. 8 deadline for voters to fix any issues. "Hi all. Once again, to clarify: the activity taking place today is for provisional ballots. Not absentee ballots," Rizzo's note read. ... It is not clear how many altered forms were sent across the state, but Kim's email outlined a step-by-step process for volunteers and staffers to follow in order to get as many voters as possible to submit the altered form three days AFTER the deadline. “The voters MUST print out the form and sign it by hand,” Kim wrote in the email that attached copies of the altered forms in both English and Spanish. The email also included a sheet with the contact information of all election supervisors in the state. The document Kim attached to her email was an altered state form to fix an absentee ballot with signature problems. The altered form modified the original state document by replacing the deadline identified as "no later than 5 p.m. on the day before the election" with a new deadline "no later than 5 p.m. Thursday Nov. 8." Kim's email instructed staff and volunteers to use the list of voters to contact about their signature problems on the absentee ballots, to complete the form on the phone with the voter and to email the completed form to the voter. The voter was instructed to print the form and to sign it. And Kim's email instructed the party workers to tell voters to deliver the signed form to their local election office. Kim told staffers that voters should reply back to them AFTER they delivered the forms at the party's email, vote@floridadems.org. That email was also included in documents Florida election officials referred to federal prosecutors in connection to the altered forms received by Broward and the other three counties. “If needed (party) staff or volunteer should go pick up their affidavit and deliver it for them if they are not able to deliver by 5 p.m. Thursday. (Each office should identify a runner that can do this.),” her email states. “We will also follow with a tracking system for people who we send affidavits," Kim told staffers. Pam Keith, a Palm Beach County Democratic activist, came under fire Wednesday after Republicans circulated a screenshot of a Nov. 7 deleted tweet she sent to about 22,000 of her Twitter followers, encouraging people to fix their absentee ballots two days after the state-mandated deadline. Keith told the USA TODAY NETWORK - Florida that she was aware the deadline to submit "cure affidavits" had expired but she told people there was still time to fix their absentee ballots. She then directed voters to email Katharine Priegues, a field organizer with the Florida Democratic Party, with the subject line "I want to help" for instructions on what to do. "I was trying to show that if given notice, voters would try to fix their ballots," Keith said. "I was putting the word out because I was anticipating a challenge of that deadline (in court)." ... Federal law defines election fraud to include preventing voters from participating in a federal election "through such tactics as disseminating false information" about the race, as outlined in an Oct. 25 letter to the state department by Assistant U.S. Attorney Harry C. Wallace in Miami. Wallace, who is handling federal election complaints in Florida, declined to comment when contacted about an investigation into the altered forms. “Making or using an altered form is a criminal offense under Florida law,” wrote Bradley McVay, the state department’s lawyer, when he referred the altered forms circulated in Broward and three other counties to federal prosecutors. “More fundamentally, altering a form in a manner that provides the incorrect date for a voter to cure a defect (or an incorrect method as it related to provisional ballots) imposes a burden on the voter significant enough to frustrate the voter’s ability to vote.”

IF we really want to combat this FRAUD,
then we must prosecute these criminals,
and PUNISH THEM with fines and jail time
to the MAXIMUM EXTENT OF THE LAW !

Well for the most part there are differences between the two.

Such as, when in the majority the Democrats make hay with their power, usually at any rate. While Republicans squander theirs. Healthcare reform, or repeal and replace Obamacare was a great example. Not getting it done, primarily because they had talked about doing it for numerous years, but never cemented a plan with the details, they couldn't get it done. Thanks again Juan McCain for not at least getting the repeal accomplished.

That gave the Democrats the opportunity to basically claim to their base that healthcare was in jeopardy, and specifically preexisting conditions would be lost in a Republican plan. They had a few other arrows in their quivers that were lies about what horrible things the Republicans would do if they remained in power. All lies, but that isn't important to low information voters who really have trouble distinguishing between truth & lies. Most can't analyze the realities that the goods they are being sold are unattainable. That if they actually were successful in enacting their plan it would be short lived due to the terrible results that would start exposing themselves rather quickly.

While in theory the Republicans are supposed to be more fiscally sound then the Democrats, they both like to spend in their quest to secure votes. They are supposed to be for smaller government but can never eliminate a single agency, or allocate less money to agencies.

I think most people realize that even with these shared attributes, that we face very different results when one party controls the levers then when the opposition party is in control.

The economy is always on a better footing with Republicans than with Democrats. As is sovereignty, then with the Democrats, even when it is only slightly so. Right now that is one of the major difference between the parties, mostly because of 1 person, President Trump. Though he has managed to gain a few Republican allies, with zip from the Democrat side. We, the base, have been successful in this effort but only due to our support of President Trump. The Bushes were bobble-head dolls when it came to supporting this country's sovereignty. They mouthed they were for it yet did nothing to further it, because they were beholden to their big money donors, not to Republicans.

There are many other examples, but by now I'm sure you have gotten tired of hearing me drone on. Besides I just woke up. 8>)

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