Citizens Demand House Committee Investigate Corrupt Florida Election

Unwilling to let the matter drop, election transparency activists have begun circulating a petition calling for Congress to investigate an election in which a state judge ruled that paper ballots in a congressional primary were illegally destroyed. The activists are challenging the seating of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, former head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC.) Wasserman-Schultz was forced to resign after emails published by Wikileaks showed that she was committed to the nomination of Hillary Clinton in 2016 as the party's nominee for president, despite an organization bylaw requiring the DNC leadership to remain neutral, and to ensure that state primaries were fair.

The petition has in a few days already garnered nearly 2200 signatories. The petition is addressed to and will be presented to the House Administration Committee is chaired by Chairperson Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) Lofgren recently introduced H.R. 1, the For the People Act, "a sweeping package of pro-democracy and anticorruption reforms."

The activists are questioning the 2018 and the 2016 contests between Wasserman-Schultz and University of Florida law professor Tim Canova. It reads in part:

"In 2016, Wasserman Schultz survived a hotly contested Democratic primary challenge from Professor Canova, who later sought to inspect the paper ballots cast in the primary. When the Broward County Supervisor of Elections stonewalled Canova’s public records request, he filed a lawsuit to enforce his inspection rights. But while that lawsuit was pending, Snipes destroyed all the paper ballots. The Florida Circuit Court granted summary judgment to Canova in May 2018, ruling that Snipes had violated numerous state and federal criminal statutes by destroying the ballots. To this date, there has been no criminal investigation of Snipes’ illegal ballot destruction."

One way the petition is being circulated is via Facebook, with signers asked to "tag" their friends who might be interested.

Election transparency activists have been working for years to enact legislation which ensures that elections are transparent and verifiable by ordinary citizens. However,they note, election laws, no matter how good, are of little value unless they are enforced.