Rick Scott files flurry of election lawsuits with Florida recount underway

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Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate, filed multiple lawsuits against Broward and Palm Beach Counties on Sunday, accusing local officials of “willful disregard of the law.”

Votes counted by Palm Beach County after the noon deadline on Saturday should not be included in the statewide recount, Scott argues in one of his complaints, according to CNN. Palm Beach County elections supervisor Susan Buchner and Broward County supervisor of elections Brenda Snipes have come under scrutiny for the recount effort.

[Opinion: Broward County stole my vote in 2000, and Brenda Snipes helped cover it up]

In two different lawsuits, Scott’s campaign is requesting that voting tabulation equipment be impounded after the recount and that all ballots be preserved.

Scott narrowly leads incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., by 12,562 votes, or 0.15 percentage points — a small enough margin to trigger an automatic machine recount on Saturday.

“If Rick Scott wanted to make sure every legal ballot is counted, he would not be suing to try and stop voters from having their legal ballot counted as intended,” Nelson said in a statement. “He’s doing this for the same reason he’s been making false and panicked claims about voter fraud — he’s worried that when all the votes are counted he’ll lose this election.”

If Democrats hold onto Nelson’s seat and pickup another in Arizona they will have lost only on one seat in the Senate.

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