Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes was forced from her position after multiple allegations of voter fraud and election meddling during the midterm elections earlier this month.
Snipes chose to resign on Sunday, rather than be forcibly removed from office, after multiple complaints from President Trump and GOP members that she participated in voter fraud by “finding” new votes that favored Democratic Senate candidate Bill Nelson and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum.
Snipes, who supervised the elections in heavily Democratic Broward County, Florida, was under heavy pressure to step down after her office “found” new votes for Nelson and Gillum.
“Although I have enjoyed this work tremendously over these many election cycles, both large and small, I am ready to pass the torch. Therefore, I request that you accept my letter of resignation effective January 4, 2019.” Snipes wrote in a letter to outgoing Republican Governor Rick Scott.
Snipes, 75, was accused of delaying the count and refusing to hand over final vote tallies after the midterm elections ended on Nov. 6.
The delay stretched on for nearly 2 weeks as many called for the National Guard to storm Snipes’ Broward County offices and take over the count.
As a result of the newly found ballots, Gillum took back his concession to Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis.
Gillum said he reversed his concession because he wanted to ensure that every vote was counted.
The criticism didn’t end with the candidates and the local GOP, President Trump weighed in by condemning Snipes.
Trump said “really bad things” were going on in Broward County and he called out Snipes for her “horrible history” of voter fraud in Florida.
“All of a sudden they are finding votes out of nowhere,” said Trump, who suggested Snipes was helping the Democrats to steal the elections from Nelson and DeSantis.
“I mean you look at what they’ve done, you look at the dishonesty, look, look, there’s bad things gone on in Broward County, really bad things,” Trump said.
Trump called for Snipes to be fired, saying, “When they call this woman incompetent, they’re wring. She’s very competent but in a bad way.”
But the Democrats denied any wrongdoing, and several judges sided with Snipes by denying emergency injunctions to safeguard the voting equipment.
A judge denied Gov. Scott’s motion to throw out votes tallied after Saturday’s 3 p.m. deadline.
In what many considered the last straw, Snipes missed the deadline for submitting the recount results by just 2 minutes on Thursday — which nullified more than 700 new votes that would have gone to Senate candidate Rick Scott.
The missed deadline angered many Broward County officials who stayed up all night to help recount the votes.
“Basically I just worked my ass off for nothing,” said Joseph D’Allessandro, Broward County’s election planning and development director.
Gov. Scott’s campaign argued that Snipes missed the deadline by 2 minutes on purpose, saying he would have gained 779 new votes if Snipes hadn’t been late.
But Snipes defended herself, saying, “An election like the one we just finished almost has so many moving parts and so many components. I’m pleased that we were able to accomplish what we did accomplish in the period of time that was available.”
Photo by Joe Skipper / Getty Images
