Florida election: Broward supervisor fights ballot box conspiracy theory
LAUDERHILL — Mysterious ballot boxes transported on trucks? Late-night deliveries to the elections warehouse? Boxes marked “provisional ballots” found throughout Broward County?
A simple scroll through social media yields several conspiracy theories alleging rampant election fraud in Broward County on the cusp of a historic recount. Some of those theories were floated by elected officials, like Matt Gaetz, a Republican congressman from northwest Florida who shared a now-viral video of a questionable midnight delivery to Broward’s election warehouse in Lauderhill.
“You tell me why we can’t know what’s coming in and out of that truck,” Gaetz is heard in the video asking a man near the truck delivery. The video has been viewed more than 670,000 times on Twitter.
The conspiracies simply aren’t true, a Broward County elections spokesman insisted on Saturday, hoping to quiet the widespread criticism of elections chief Brenda Snipes.
Eugene Pettis, a lawyer for the elections supervisor, emerged from the Lauderhill warehouse Saturday with two gray bins both labeled “election supplies” on one side and “provisional ballots” on another.
They are nearly identical to the bins that have appeared in viral social media posts, allegedly showing ballots left at precincts or suspiciously delivered to the supervisor’s office post-Election Day.
When poll workers set up shop at a precinct, Pettis explained, they bring supplies in these gray bins. When they remove the supplies, the bins are converted into provisional ballot drop-boxes. When it’s time to transport those provisional ballots to the supervisor’s office, the ballots are placed in bright orange bags that are sealed with zip ties.
The gray boxes never actually transport ballots, Pettis said.
When the boxes leave a precinct, they’re holding left over supplies, Pettis said, opening the a bin in front of reporters to reveal they contained only binders and paperwork.
“People see this box moving and, on the one side of the box, it says ‘provisional ballots’ and they think ballots are being brought back here,” Pettis said, hoping to dispel the rumors circulating on Facebook and Twitter. “There are no ballots in any of these boxes. What’s in there is supplies.”
The late-night deliveries captured in Gaetz’s video? Returning equipment, including chairs and voting machines, once-shipped to hundreds of precincts throughout Broward County, officials said.
The bin marked “provisional ballots” discovered at Sunshine Elementary School in Miramar? Filled with supplies.
“Given what’s going on, there are hundreds of these, a lot of them,” Pettis said. “There are no ballots, is the bottom line, in any of these boxes.”
LAUDERHILL — Mysterious ballot boxes transported on trucks? Late-night deliveries to the elections warehouse? Boxes marked “provisional ballots” found throughout Broward County?
A simple scroll through social media yields several conspiracy theories alleging rampant election fraud in Broward County on the cusp of a historic recount. Some of those theories were floated by elected officials, like Matt Gaetz, a Republican congressman from northwest Florida who shared a now-viral video of a questionable midnight delivery to Broward’s election warehouse in Lauderhill.
“You tell me why we can’t know what’s coming in and out of that truck,” Gaetz is heard in the video asking a man near the truck delivery. The video has been viewed more than 670,000 times on Twitter.
The conspiracies simply aren’t true, a Broward County elections spokesman insisted on Saturday, hoping to quiet the widespread criticism of elections chief Brenda Snipes.
Eugene Pettis, a lawyer for the elections supervisor, emerged from the Lauderhill warehouse Saturday with two gray bins both labeled “election supplies” on one side and “provisional ballots” on another.
They are nearly identical to the bins that have appeared in viral social media posts, allegedly showing ballots left at precincts or suspiciously delivered to the supervisor’s office post-Election Day.
When poll workers set up shop at a precinct, Pettis explained, they bring supplies in these gray bins. When they remove the supplies, the bins are converted into provisional ballot drop-boxes. When it’s time to transport those provisional ballots to the supervisor’s office, the ballots are placed in bright orange bags that are sealed with zip ties.
The gray boxes never actually transport ballots, Pettis said.
When the boxes leave a precinct, they’re holding left over supplies, Pettis said, opening the a bin in front of reporters to reveal they contained only binders and paperwork.
“People see this box moving and, on the one side of the box, it says ‘provisional ballots’ and they think ballots are being brought back here,” Pettis said, hoping to dispel the rumors circulating on Facebook and Twitter. “There are no ballots in any of these boxes. What’s in there is supplies.”
The late-night deliveries captured in Gaetz’s video? Returning equipment, including chairs and voting machines, once-shipped to hundreds of precincts throughout Broward County, officials said.
The bin marked “provisional ballots” discovered at Sunshine Elementary School in Miramar? Filled with supplies.
“Given what’s going on, there are hundreds of these, a lot of them,” Pettis said. “There are no ballots, is the bottom line, in any of these boxes.”
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