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.
During the 2000 Florida fiasco, there were allegedly more votes for Pat Buchanan than there should have been. Supposedly, a lot of voters thought they were voting for Gore due to a confused ballot layout. It never ends.
It looks VERY #$##ing obvious to me where to vote for senator.
Is the FL average IQ hovering around 75??
I didn’t think so.
It’s NOT POSSIBLE that I would NOT notice that I didn’t vote for senator.
So #$@## this nonsnese.
In fact, this is the first time I saw this sheet and I thought before that MAYBE it was possible to miss it.
It’s RIGHT THERE OUT IN THE OPEN!!!
Who designed the ballot? Oh let me think, it was the supervisor of elections in that county.
Not the old “Butterfly Ballot, I thought I voted for David Duke” sh*t again!
LOL. Dude, you still think there is a lie the Rats won’t tell?
I agree that it is NOT confusing. And for anyone to suggest that some Dems “meant to vote” for the Dem candidate, but just missed that box is ridiculous.
If this layout is really too complicated for them, then they have no business voting, IMHO.
Stupid conclusions/inferences.
Interesting article.
There is NO SUCH THING as a perfect ballot design. And I left a number of races blank on my (Florida) ballot this November.
I assume they are honest about their age and name :)
None of what this man says makes any sense at all...
If you needed to read the instructions in another language, it would have led you straight to the choices for Senate. Anybody else would have had to be 90% blind to miss the Senate section. This guy is just trying to cause more trouble...probably a Never Trumper who hates Scott and DeSantis trying to get a spot on CNN...I can hear it now....”Even a Loyal Republican says ballot design was confusing”
Give me a break! If I were DeSantis, I would sign a law that says ballots will be printed only in English. If you want to live here and vote here, learn the English language!
Another point is that, are they saying the GOP voters could find that box, but the Dem voters could not? It seems like it should have had the same impact, if, in fact, the voters could not locate the box for Senator votes.
It’s not the heat; it’s the humidity!
I didn’t miss anything on the ballot. Does the author think people who don’t even know who is running or who they are going to vote for until thy open their ballot in the mail are really disenfranchised or are just too lazy to vote anperhaps dumb enough or so apathetic they shouldn’t vote anyway?
Yeah man, I’d be #@#$ing EMBARRASSED to even bring this up!
But dems have no shame.
That’s why all you need to get a 20 something dem into bed is a 6 dollar dink at a bar.
Nor morals, scruples or ethics.
This does not look strange to me at all. The first ballot question is for U.S. Senator (only Federal State-wide question). The ballot is arranged in three columns top to bottom, left to right.
Most people don’t read instructions. I think senator should have been near the top. It is in a weird spot.
In my state, the ballot was in landscape format. Much much easier to use. Vote for senator and governor were at the top.
NEVER thought about that.
Wow.
Florida has real problems from design of ballot to counting. Why are these people SI incompetent?
Agreed
If I couldn’t find where to vote for US SENATOR, not official city dog walker, I would scour the pages and THEN I Would contact whomever I needed to to find out WTF is going on!!
But in this case that wasn’t necessary because IT WAS OBVIOUS!!!
Their was a similar blog article on FR earlier. The Freeper contended that the ballot design would have resulted in the senate race receiving no-votes. But the Freeper contended that the design was intended to allow poll workers to supply a Dem vote later to be included in the recounts. It gave them legitimate ballots where recounts could be skewed.
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