Brenda Snipes supervised the election in Broward County and faced heavy criticism over her bungling of the recount, which included several severe instances of incompetence or worse.
In 2012, almost 1,000 uncounted ballots in Broward were discovered in the county a week after the election and in 2004, her office said 58,000 absentee ballots were lost.
The series of mishaps led to calls for Snipes to be removed from office, and the resignation sets the stage for a replacement to be named.
Resignation Submitted
Burnadette Norris-Weeks, an attorney who works as counsel to the Supervisor of Elections Office, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that Snipes has tendered her resignation. In the early draft she saw, Snipes expressed a desire to spend more time with her family.Snipes, 75, has served as county election supervisor for 15 years.
While there was initially some confusion about the date of her resignation, with Norris-Weeks saying it was effective Jan. 2 and Evelyn Pérez-Verdia, a former communications consultant for Snipes’ office, saying it was effective on Jan. 5, Politico reporter Marc Caputo obtained the official resignation letter, showing it to be set for Jan. 4.
Due to her resignation being effective in January, Governor-elect Ron DeSantis will be responsible for appointing Snipes’s replacement. If it was earlier, outgoing Gov. Rick Scott, who was elected to the Senate, would have appointed the replacement.
Possible Suspension
If Snipes had not resigned then she would have likely been forced into retirement, Politico reported.“Snipes’ office failed to regularly provide vote total updates to the state every 45 minutes as the numbers came in, causing tens of thousands of votes in the races for U.S. Senate, governor, and agriculture commissioner to seemingly materialize out of thin air,” the outlet summarized one of the problems.
“That resulted in the Republicans’ margins shrinking due to the vast number of votes in the Democratic stronghold of Broward, Florida’s second-most populous county.”