Thread: Brenda Snipes, embattled Broward County election official, to resign, report says

Brenda Snipes, embattled Broward County election official, to resign, report says

By Nicole Darrah | Fox News
Published 3 hours ago

Brenda Snipes, the supervisor of elections in Florida's Broward County, has submitted her resignation, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Sunday.

The paper reported that Snipes' resignation will take effect in January.

“It is true. She did send it,” Burnadette Norris-Weeks, an attorney for the county's elections office, told the news outlet.

Snipes has faced heavy criticism over her handling of votes during this year's elections. Florida's contests for governor and U.S. Senate went to recounts, putting the political spotlight on the Sunshine State with an intensity not seen since the 2000 presidential election.

Former Bush-Cheney campaign adviser Brad Blakeman, who played a critical role in the 2000 recount, weighs in on the midterm mess.

On Monday, Snipes told reporters that she's worked in the office "for about 15 years, and I have to say this the first time that this office or I have been under such attacks. "There have been issues that haven't gone the way we wanted it. You can call it a mistake or you can call it whatever you want to call it."

On Tuesday, the election official said "it is time to move on" from her role overseeing Broward's elections. And on Saturday, she told The Guardian that racism "probably" played a role in the heated criticism against her. That same day, Snipes also acknowledged that her office had misplaced more than 2,000 ballots during the recount.

Snipes was appointed as the top elections official in Broward County in 2003 by then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican. Snipes, a Democrat, has been elected to the role four times since.

But even Bush lost his patience with Snipes, calling for her resignation on Twitter last week after the recount turned into a fiasco.

"There is no question that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians’ confidence in our electoral process," Bush tweeted. "Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts."

Snipes was a notorious figure in Florida politics long before this year's election drama.

Earlier this year, a state judge ruled that Snipes broke election law by destroying ballots in a 2016 congressional primary race involving Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz without waiting the required 22 months. Also in 2016, a medical marijuana amendment didn't appear on some Broward ballots, and again that year results from primary elections were posted on the office's website before polls had closed.

A week after the 2012 election, about 1,000 uncounted ballots were suddenly discovered. And in 2004, about 58,000 mail-in ballots were not delivered, requiring workers to hurry to replace them.

Just last week, a Broward County judge found that Snipes had violated Florida open records laws by failing to quickly provide voting records to attorneys for Scott's Senate campaign.

More than 8.1 million votes were cast in Florida in the midterm elections. The state is scheduled to certify results in the Senate race — which incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson conceded to Republican Gov. Rick Scott on Sunday — on Nov. 20.

Fox News' Barnini Chakraborty and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bre...ts-resignation

Resign or be fired, that was probably her only two choices.