Opinion: In A Sane World Brenda Snipes Would Be In Prison, Not Reinstated

Image: Brenda Snipes, Broward County Supervisor of Elections, during a canvassing board meeting in Lauderhill, Fla., on Nov. 10, 2018. (Joe Skipper/Getty Images)

The following article is my own intellectual property and was originally published via Disobedient Media.

Some readers might be thoroughly - and rightly - sick of reading about the ongoing litany of Brenda Snipes's corruption. After the former Broward County elections supervisor went unprosecuted for her multiple felonies spanning at least two elections, she now has the gall to add insult to injury by playing the victim for being ousted by Florida's Governor, Rick Scott. Days ago, Snipes reportedly pleaded with a Federal judge, claiming that she was the victim of unfair "targeting" by Scott.

The Washington Times wrote: "Brenda Snipes was in a federal court Monday asking U.S. District Judge Mark Walker to reinstate her as elections supervisor for Broward County. Walker did not rule during the nearly two-hour hearing, but he did raise questions about whether Snipes was given a chance to defend herself against allegations made by Scott."

Tim Canova, as readers will recall, ran against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as an independent in the November midterms, after previously running against her in a Democratic primary race. Canova responded to this latest news via social media, saying:

"If Brenda Snipes is reinstated as Broward Elections Supervisor instead of arrested for illegally tampering with evidence and willfully destroying ballots (multiple felonies!!!), can we please stop pretending we have any semblance of a democracy, the rule of law, or real elections?"

Canova also took to Twitter, calling on Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Tulsi Gabbard, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, President Trump, Governor Rick Scott, and former gubernatorial candidate Ron De Santis to stand for election integrity: "Be on notice that fixing our fraudulent elections must now be our litmus test."

Since this latest news emerged, some have postulated that Snipes's appeal may be motivated by a desire to ensure that she receives her pension. Regardless of her ultimate motivation, it is important that the public is informed of the depth and breadth of Snipes's betrayal of the public she was appointed to serve. In light of the legacy press's failure to cover this real example of epic election rigging, it is left to small independent outlets and journalists to convey the story to the public.

As Disobedient Media previously reported, Snipes went so far as to appear with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on the campaign trail just prior to the November elections. The lack of legacy press outrage on this issue is exquisitely hypocritical: can one imagine the outrage that would have ensued if Trump had campaigned with Putin in the weeks before the 2016 Presidential election?

The race in Florida's 23rd district drew additional ire after video evidence emerged and went viral, showing ballots being improperly transported in private vehicles. Governor Rick Scott eventually fired Snipes on November 30th via executive order, after Snipes had announced her intent to resign effective January 2019. The order read in part:

Earlier this month, Tim Canova's campaign also called on Congress to refuse to seat Wasserman-Schultz, citing Snipes's documented inability to maintain a proper chain of custody of ballots, as well as other issues that call the results of the Congressional race into obvious question.

Disobedient Media previously reported that Canova contested the results of the race, and an amended complaint filed by Canova in December makes it astoundingly clear that Snipes should not be in a position to argue for reinstatement, but in a sane world would be defending herself in a court of law on multiple felony counts. The complaint, first reported by Big League Politics, also details Snipes's previous felonious acts in the 2016 primary race between Canova and Schultz:

"... It is beyond reasonable dispute that Snipes has long engaged in demonstrable misconduct in connection with elections in Broward County, including misconduct in the 2018 General Election that is sufficient to change or at least place in doubt the results reported by Snipes in the 2018 General Election for Florida’s 23rd Congressional District."

"... Snipes engaged in a repeated pattern of obstruction, deception, and ultimately unlawful conduct in the destruction of all the ballots cast in the 2016 primary... On May 11, 2018, the Florida Circuit Court granted Plaintiff Canova summary judgment, and found that Snipes had violated numerous state and federal statutes, including laws punishable as felonies with up to five years in prison. The Court’s ruling made clear that Snipes’ destruction of ballots was illegal on several separate counts... Violations of the federal statute are punishable by up to a year in prison. Violations of the state statute are punishable as felonies by up to five years in prison."

"The Court further found that Snipes had violated the Florida statutory requirements to act in good faith. Snipes destroyed the ballots in September 2017, but nonetheless filed her Answer and Affirmative Defenses on October 31, 2017 and did not reveal the ballot destruction until November 6, 2017. Even after admitting to the unlawful destruction of ballots, Snipes’ continued to litigate in bad faith."

"After the Florida Circuit Court ruled that Defendant Snipes had violated state and federal statutes in destroying all the ballots cast in the 2016 primary election, there were no consequences for Snipes – she was not suspended and replaced by the Governor, and there was no announcement of any criminal investigation by any law enforcement agencies."

Turning our attention back to the disastrous 2018 midterms, the complaint reads: "...Close to 100,000 of Defendant Wasserman Schultz’s 161,611 total votes show no indication of how or when those votes were cast. These “approximately 98,000 votes from nowhere” for Wasserman Schultz may have been votes transferred illegally from another candidate or candidates, which would be “sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election.”

The complaint also cites a report by Truthout, showing that: "Of the 148,833 votes that Wasserman Schultz reportedly received in Broward County, 97,874 votes were not identified by voting method. The total votes that are not identified by voting method alone are enough to change the results of this election, or at the very least to place in doubt these results."

The document goes on to detail exclusive research showing that votes for Canova were: "Not impacted by any demographic, but rather remain consistent at very close to 5% across all precincts - no matter which demographic is voting. According to one high level computer security expert interviewed by Freisdat, this is as likely as "winning the lottery every day for a year.” In the same interview, that high-level computer security expert stated that this looks “mathematically generated across the precincts [and that] ... there's something that appears to be systematic in nature ... Typically an algorithm or formula would apply some linear function, and that's essentially what we see here."

If this type of "systematic" interference is proven to have occurred, then it took place under the watch of Snipes and in benefit of her ally Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who, dare-we-forget, was pivotal in cheating Bernie Sanders's run against Hillary Clinton in 2016's doomed Democratic Primary. Snipes and Schultz are the public faces - no, the visible sores, the putrefying boils on the American body politic, that have yet to be lanced. The problem we face as a larger nation when witnessing the downfall of Democracy in Florida's 23rd Congressional district is not the weeping sores alone, but the overwhelming sickness that prompted them to appear.

Update: A ruling has been made in Snipes’s case, with Judge Walker denying Snipes reinstatement but granting her a hearing. Additionally, the expert mentioned in Canova’s complaint has also been disclosed as Dr. David Bader, Chair of Computational Science at Georgia Tech University. Disobedient Media will continue to report on this story as it develops.

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