The news came in the 19th Circuit Court this afternoon in Fort Pierce.
The difference between Allen West and Patrick Murphy now stands at 0.58 percent. Just outside the realm of what would rightfully demand a recount.
Somewhere in the mess of election night, between the failure of six memory cards , and the rescanning of 26,400 votes, Allen West gained 500 votes relative to Patrick Murphy.
It is a mess. Once again the damned machines have had a part in it. In this case the supervisor's handling of it brought even more uncertainty into the equation.
But in the end, Judge Vaughn ruled there were "other legal remedies" than demanding a judge's order forcing the canvassing board to recount all eight days of early voting (bet the republicans wish they had back all 14 now!) as well as the absentee ballots. In which case, the judge had no legal authority to override an elections board. The deadline for certification is Sunday, November 19.
The date when, for intents and purposes, the totals become final. The election can be challenged, and West's team says it will if the canvassing board votes today to do nothing; they can bring up a massive lawsuit, which will take the entirety of Patrick Murphy's term in office to rule on.
See Christine Jennings versus Vern Buchanan and tha Sarasota County supervisor of elections, for how it went. Hint: Buchanan is still in congress.
The point is, just because Murphy "won" doesn't mean the machines and someone's idea of "fair" chicanery didn't hurt him. The legitimacy of his tenure will have an asterisk next to it as far as the right is concerned. The wounds felt by Floridians in this are real.
Tea Party types are marching where I would be marching against the result that gave us Rick Scott. This is a blatant carbon copy of the result in that case.
Because I really do not like Allen West and feel some relief that -pending the miracle of outright stupidity and the canvassing board decides to recount everything West's team is asking for - Murphy will be in the office, this still is NOT a good result.
By the way, if the latter happens? It is Murphy's people will challenge and this fight will essentially impeded the tenure, power and effectiveness of the 18th Florida congressional district for the next two years.
St. Lucie uses virtually the same equipment Hillsborough used in the 2010 race and continues to use: Dominion voting operating Diebold/Premiere scanners and tabulators, running off GEMS software. This garbage needs to go.
Look at what it is doing to us. West's people are wealthy, and middle class Palm Beach types, most of whom are white. They are blaming Walker, and her staff most of whom are black.
You have white tea partiers and hard core conservatives rallying around a black guy, going after what they see as a corrupt SOE office run by a black woman. Go figure. The new America.
The point is, these damned machines are nothing but a divider. They don't work. When they don't distrust soars through the roof. People feel their democracy and their rights are being taken away.
I listened to dissertations from these folks who are convinced that George Soros, Warren Buffett and Obama had something to do with what is happening in St. Lucie county. They talked about the former two purchasing voting machines via investment buyout; leave off that those attempted purchases haven't materialized yet and Dominion owns the contract on all the equipment in St. Lucie County; a Canadian Company with ties to the hard line Rovian election theft machine, according to this source.
But see, they don't want to hear all that. They see their side only because they don't want to consider the fact that their own people way on up the food chain, might be the ones who made the attempt to rig the vote in St. Lucie to boost Allen West.
Murphy's folks are obviously worried that fait accomplis may lurk in the numbers of a recount for that very reason! And how do we trust the Florida Sec. of State Ken Detzner? YOU CAN'T he's a partisan appointed former beer lobbyist who was handed the ship of state the SS. Suppress the Black Vote by another shady partisan appointee, Kurt Browning.
Can you trust the audit team currently down at the St. Lucie office of supervisor of elections directed by a shady little man known as David Drury? Hell to the no, Murphy's people can't. Not if they have a brain in their collective head. Drury has his little paws all over the office now. All over the works. Who fucking knows what that little man has been up to. He's been in there two days now.
And you'll have more luck getting a straight answer from a cat.
So where are we? The elections systems in this state are fornicated, completely. And no one trusts.
And we have no earthly idea what in Croesus went on inside the office of supervisor of elections on election night in St. Lucie county. And we will ask for a conduct of election report all the same and it will have words on it and such, and no matter, we still won't know a damned thing.
We have to get rid of these damned machines, and learn like school children, how to count slips of paper, by hand, all over again.
Attorney for Patrick Murphy Sean Dominick put it to me this way: "In Iraq, they learned how to count the vote, who voted and so on, by putting a purple mark on the thumb of the voter. Easy. What are we doing here?"
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