Republican In Florida Broke The Law And Allowed Illegal Voting By E-Mail

As we’ve all seen since Donald Trump was elected, conservatives are the sorest winners, and they’re not very graceful over the prospect of potentially losing a race, either. Trump and some of his Republican colleagues are disregarding how elections work in Florida. A recount in that state is automatically triggered if two candidates are within 0.5 points of each other, and a hand recount is mandated with a margin of 0.25 points or less. Many of the ballots that arrive after election day are cast by military service members, contractors, and dependents deployed overseas, but Republicans are now suddenly anti-military.

Gov. Rick Scott has claimed without evidence that his opponent is trying to steal the election. And this morning, Trump again called for Scott’s opponent, Bill Nelson, to concede the race even though the votes haven’t been counted yet. Trump has also claimed without evidence that some of the ballots are ‘forged.’

As a shock to no one ever, the cheating seems to come from Republicans.

Newsweek reports:

In heavily Republican Bay County, however, election supervisor Mark Andersen acknowledged Monday that he had allowed some voters to cast their ballots over email, which is not allowed under state law.

Bay County was hit hard by Hurricane Michael on Oct. 10, and Scott issued an executive order on Oct. 18 extending early voting and expanding more voting locations in the eight affected counties. His order, The Associated Press reports, explicitly prohibited votes being returned by email or fax. Andersen defended his decision to let 150 people scan their ballots and email them in, telling NBC affiliate WJHG/WECP, “If you want to turn around and take away these votes away from voters because it’s not the normal prescribed issue, I would just say you ought to be ashamed of yourself because what we did is take care of voters.”

(my bold)

Well, what the normally “prescribed issue” is that a recount is triggered in that state, according to its election laws. And voting by email? If a Democrat did that, Republicans would, rightfully, throw a fit.

Andrew Gillum (D) who is running against Republican Ron DeSantis in Florida is not amused.

“These are the stories that we know,” he said. “Imagine the ones that we don’t.”

Featured image via screen capture.