On August 30, 2016, Florida held its congressional-state office primaries. One of the closer contests was the race between incumbent Democratic congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in the 23rd district, which is mostly in Broward County. The results were: Wasserman Schultz 28,809; Canova 21,907.
Canova suspected that the results were inaccurate. On October 19, 2017, he filed a public records request to see the ballots. Federal law says election officials must retain ballots until 22 months after any federal primary or election. But after Canova filed his lawsuit, Broward County election officials disposed of all the 2016 primary ballots. Canova sued. On May 11, 2018, the state trial court ruled that the destruction of the ballots was unlawful, as was the failure of the county to produce the ballots so that Canova could inspect them. Here is the 9-page opinion in Canova v Snipes, Broward Co. Circuit Court, CACE17-010904.
Ironically, earlier this year, Canova withdrew from the Democratic primary for the same seat this year, and switched to being an independent candidate. Part of his motivation was despair that he could get a fair vote-counting process in this year’s Democratic primary. If he had won the case earlier, he might have remained in the 2018 primary. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Any USA CRIMINAL prosecution of the State hacks ???
What penalty will the public officials who destroyed the ballots receive? Probably no jail time, but are there any fines they will have to pay? Of do they, despite losing the court case, essentially just get away with it?
The old adage “justice delayed in justice denied” is a primary weapon of TPTB to keep the proles in their place.
We don’t know that yet, Gene. There will be more court proceedings.
Where the hell is the link?
my nigga Tim Canova won the case and he’s flexing it on twitter.
Alexander, in the 2nd paragraph, “9-page opinion”
Wasserman Schultz did better in precincts that were heavily Democratic, getting around 70% of the vote in precincts where the Democratic vote in the primary was over 85% of the total vote.
If precincts are of equal size, precincts with higher turnout will have more votes cast. There are surely demographic reasons why a precinct would be 85% Democratic – it is either heavily black, or heavily Jewish. A CVT analysis assumes that the number of votes cast in a precinct is independent of the distribution of the vote (e.g. a precinct with 100 Republican voters will have same distribution as one with 1000 voters). But that is often a fallacy. Areas dominated by a party will typically vote in a more orthodox fashion. In this case Wasserman Schultz had been the DNC chair, and was endorsed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Canova was supported by Bernie Sanders, who is not a Democrat, and would not have been permitted to vote in the Florida primary, even if he resided there.
In the opinion, Lulu Seifrets is described as Canova’a agent. In what sense was he acting on behalf of Canova?
US Code, Title 52 [[split sentences for clarity]]
§20701. Retention and preservation of records and papers by officers of elections; deposit with custodian; penalty for violation
Every officer of election shall retain and preserve, for a period of twenty-two months from the date of any general, special, or primary election of which candidates for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, or Resident Commissioner from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico are voted for, all records and papers which come into his possession relating to any application, registration, payment of poll tax, or other act requisite to voting in such election, except that, when required by law, such records and papers may be delivered to another officer of election and except that, if a State or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico designates a custodian to retain and preserve these records and papers at a specified place, then such records and papers may be deposited with such custodian, and the duty to retain and preserve any record or paper so deposited shall devolve upon such custodian.
Any officer of election or custodian who willfully fails to comply with this section shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
( Pub. L. 86–449, title III, §301, May 6, 1960, 74 Stat. 88 .)
Codification
Section was formerly classified to section 1974 of Title 42, The Public Health and Welfare, prior to editorial reclassification and renumbering as this section.
Jim Riley
In our analysis we compared the actual demographic breakdown of the voters who voted, and could not get them to match the results, no matter who they had voted for. My name is Lulu Friesdat, and I am female btw. I was an expert witness in the case.
Thus — one more FELONY STOLEN election ???
See 1948 USA Senate LBJ Texas
See 1960 Prez JFK Chicago, IL
Etc
Etc
ALL sorts of FELON winners ??? — with numbers of lower FELONS subverting Democracy ???
— doing the dirty work — like nazi SS killers — doing the Holocaust mass murder dirty work ???
—
PR and AppV
@Lulu Friesdat,
I came across an estimate that about 15% of persons in FL-23 were Jewish (this was prior to the latest redistricting, so it might have changed). Among adults, adult citizens, Democrats, and Democrats who voted in the primary it is likely to be even higher in each successive group. Florida does not have registration or voting statistics by religion. That is a significant demographic.
When you did the CVT analysis, did you order the precincts by the votes cast in the Democratic primary?
This is typically an error made in CVT analysis for primaries. Turnout in a primary is often demographically correlated. If most of the voters in an area are Republican or Democratic, it is because of the demographic or socioeconomic factors in the area. Voters will be more likely to select a party to fit in. When they vote in a primary, they may be more likely to vote in an orthodox fashion (no religious connotation intended).
They may also be more likely to vote. GOTV effort will be concentrated at pools of potential voters.
If you have two precincts with equal numbers of registered voters, a precinct that is 60% Democratic will have more voters in the Democratic primary, than one that is 60% Republican. A 60% Democratic precinct may have more than three times the votes cast than a precinct that is 20% Democratic.
If you order precincts by votes cast in the Democratic primary, you are combining a number of factors, including total voters, how Democratic the precinct is, and how motivated the voters are. In a district almost entirely in Broward County, precinct size might not vary too much. Precincts delineated when cars were ubiquitous may be larger. Houses are further apart, and churches and schools used for polling places may be larger. In older areas, there may have been a population decline due to smaller family sizes, and poorer quality housing eliminated/unocccupied or converted to commercial uses. It may be difficult to convert four precincts into three larger precincts particularly where there is resistance to change. A hotly contested primary such as Canova-Wasserman Schultz may drive turnout up in Democratic leaning areas, such that total votes cast is not independent of demographics.
If precincts are ordered by (a) Total votes (Dem and GOP); (b) Democrat votes cast; and (c) Democrat percentage of total votes; then it is (c) that shows the strongest increase in Wasserman Schultz at the high end. Wasserman Schultz performed best in precincts that were heavily Democratic. In the 18 largish precincts that were more than 85% Democratic, Wasserman Schultz outperformed her county performance in 17 of them, and had over 70% of the vote in nine of them.
Some of these precincts are heavily black, particularly those in southern Pembroke Pines, and eastern Plantation.
Another notable difference is how heavily female many of these precincts were. This is likely due to factors (a) felony disenfranchisement; (b) an elderly population with more widows than widowers; or (c) more single/divorced persons. Single/divorced males tend to be less connected to their community. Even if they are a parent, they are likely to be less involved in child-rearing. Married couples tend to vote the same way, single females are more likely to vote Democratic, single males are more likely to not vote. A
Another cluster of high Democratic turnout was in Sunrise. While blacks were not absent, they were not dominant either. But these precincts were strongly female. My guess is that there are a lot of apartments in the area, rented by single mothers, a long way from the beach.
It would not be too surprising that Wasserman Schultz did better among women. They may generally be more conservative in certain respects, voting for the incumbent. Men may be more radical.
@Demo Rep, That federal statute does not clearly apply to ballots. “other act requisite to voting” is an odd to express actually marking a ballot. Florida has very strong FOIA laws. It is surprising that the ballots were destroyed after the lawsuit was filed.
RW mentioned the 22 months in the top.
NOT surprising if *the ballots were destroyed after the lawsuit was filed* (AKA EVIDENCE) if all sorts of felonies happened — aka cover-up.
See Watergate felons 1972-1974.
The gerrymander MORONS in the Congress still have ANY trust in the State gerrymander MORONS after Bush v Gore 2000 ???
ie NOT having a 100 percent USA election law for USA Reps and USA Senators — to wipe out ALL the moron State laws.
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2017/12/15/experts-browards-elections-chief-broke-law-in-destroying-ballots-150258
earlier story about the machinations
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is not an honest person.