{"id":12871,"date":"2019-01-28T18:23:35","date_gmt":"2019-01-29T02:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12871"},"modified":"2019-01-28T19:07:01","modified_gmt":"2019-01-29T03:07:01","slug":"heads-up-gop-election-power-grab-underway-in-fl-in-advance-of-2020-bradcast-1282019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12871","title":{"rendered":"Heads Up! GOP Election Power-Grab Underway in FL In Advance of 2020!: ‘BradCast’ 1\/28\/2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

On today’s BradCast<\/i><\/a>: how Florida Republicans are brazenly stripping elected Democratic election officials of power (their jobs, in fact!) in advance of the 2020 election, and callers ring in on Donald Trump’s shutdown capitulation and what happens next. [Audio link to show follows below.<\/i>]\n

Florida’s new Secretary of State Mike Ertel, appointed at the end of last year by the state’s new Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, was forced to resign<\/a> late last week after photos of him dressed in blackface at a 2005 Halloween party, making fun of Hurricane Katrina disaster victims in New Orleans, were surfaced by a Florida newspaper.<\/p>\n

But, far more troubling is that two elected county Supervisors of Elections have now been suspended and forced out of their job in the two most Democratic areas of the state. Former Governor Rick Scott pushed out<\/a> Broward County’s Brenda Snipes last year, after the midterm elections. And a week or so ago, the new Governor DeSantis subsequently suspended<\/a> longtime Palm Beach County Supervisor Susan Bucher. Both suspensions used false pretexts.<\/p>\n

Scott falsely<\/a> claimed that Snipes added fraudulent ballots to the totals last November. DeSantis claimed that Bucher’s failure to deliver results on time from last year’s unprecedented four<\/i> statewide “recounts” (including ones that Scott won for the U.S. Senate and DeSantis won for Governor) justified the removal of the popular<\/a> — and elected<\/i>! — Supervisor Bucher. [DeSantis and Scott are pictured above with Trump.<\/i>] While Snipes has had a number of failures as Broward’s elections chief over the years, Bucher is one of the most dedicated and knowledgeable election officials in the nation.<\/p>\n

As we reported<\/a> before<\/i> Florida’s ridiculously short deadline for machine “recounted” elections last year, the older tabulation system still used in Palm Beach was simply, and physically, incapable of re-tallying ballots from four different statewide races in the 5 days or so allotted by state law. Bucher’s removal, as described on today’s program in detail, is nothing short of an outrageous GOP power-grab.<\/p>\n

As the Palm Beach Post<\/em> editorial board described in a scathing editorial<\/a>, the removal of Bucher “plunged a dagger into the election process”. They argue it “smacks of overreach and an abuse of power”. Bucher, the board accurately notes, is “highly respected by her peers,” has been “a hard-working public servant,” before concluding: “[S]he has never shown anything but dedication and integrity to the voters of this county. She doesn’t deserve this blatantly partisan bum’s rush from a fledgling governor.”<\/p>\n

But, it’s not just a Florida outrage<\/a>. It should be a national<\/i> one, given that two Republican lackeys have now been installed by Republican Governors to oversee elections in the two most Democratic-leaning areas of the closely divided Sunshine State in advance of the 2020 Presidential election. And, in both cases, they were removing officials who were (small-“d”) democratically elected by their constituents!<\/p>\n

Also today…<\/p>\n