Democrats Canceled Their Florida Primary To Help Biden. It Backfired And Helped Republicans Flip Local Seats
The Tampa Bay Times attributed the wins to 'significant conservative turnout.'The Tampa Bay Times attributed the wins to 'significant conservative turnout.'Gov. Ron DeSantis suspends 4 members of Broward County School Board for alleged incompetence, neglect, misuse of authority
Four members of the Broward County School Board in Florida have been suspended by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis for "a pattern of emboldening unacceptable behavior, including fraud and mismanagement."
Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray and Laurie Rich Levinson have all been suspended from the board, effective immediately. DeSantis has appointed Torey Alston, Manual "Nandy" A. Serrano, Ryan Reiter, and Kevin Tynan as interim members in their stead.
"It is my duty to suspend people from office when there is clear evidence of incompetence, neglect of duty, misfeasance or malfeasance," DeSantis said in a statement. "This action is in the best interest of the residents and students of Broward County and all citizens of Florida."
\u201cThe Governor suspends 4 @browardschools board members. Effective now.\u201d— Frog Capital (@Frog Capital) 1661535612
DeSantis suspended the members at the behest of a grand jury which had been impaneled by the state supreme court after the horrific school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, back in February 2018. The job of the grand jury was to determine whether there had been any instances of fraud or mismanagement that may have caused lapses in security and safety in area schools.
The grand jury found that school safety had supposedly been "such a low priority" for the suspended board members that an alarm which some have suggested could have saved lives at MSD "remains uninstalled at multiple schools."
The grand jury report further claimed that "students continue to be educated in unsafe, aging, decrepit, moldy buildings that were supposed to have been renovated years ago."
The grand jury even claimed that the suspended board members routinely neglected their duties in favor of building their brands.
"Broward County has provided a cornucopia of examples of an almost fanatical desire to control data and use it to manipulate public perception, including that surrounding safety," the grand jury report states. The suspended members "are seemingly obsessed with the optics of any situation and control of public impressions of their activities."
However, critics of the grand jury claim that its report focuses mainly on the SMART Program, a public safety measure approved by voters in 2014 intended to improve campus safety. The report discusses the ballooning costs of the program and some questionable decisions made by the accused board members, as well as former superintendent Robert Runcie. The grand jury's myopic fixation on the SMART Program, critics say, was time and energy diverted from the original mission of the grand jury, which was to examine the events and the district's decisions leading up to the MSD shooting.
"It is disgusting that on the backs of these families to have a bait-and-switch grand jury,” said Levinson, one of the suspended board members. “The majority of the report has nothing to do with Marjory Stoneman Douglas."
Levinson is term-limited and therefore cannot seek re-election. However, fellow suspended board member Korn is in the midst of a run-off campaign for re-election, and she said in a statement last week, "[W]hile I respect the grand jury process, I stand on my record."
The grand jury also pointed a finger at former board member Rosalind Osgood and would likely have recommended her suspension, except she is no longer a board member.
Former superintendent Runcie resigned last year after he was indicted for allegedly lying to the grand jury. He has pled not guilty, though it is unclear when his trial will be held.
Broward County Schools will implement fall mask mandate, face opposition from DeSantis
The school board in Broward County, Florida, voted Wednesday to implement a mask mandate that applies to students and faculty in all county classrooms this fall, a policy Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis fiercely opposes.
Broward County Public Schools will comply with updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance recommending that all individuals in areas with high COVID-19 transmission wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status, WLRN-TV reported.
According to the CDC, the entire state of Florida has a high level of community transmission. Over the past week in Broward County there have been 6,055 new COVID cases and 1,037 new hospitalizations, levels of transmission that would trigger the CDC's recommendation to wear masks indoors.
In response, though school board members had hoped to make masks optional in the fall, the board decided that mask-wearing would be mandatory.
"I really wanted to start this school year as normal as possible," board member Lori Alhadeff said, "and a few weeks ago, I thought that we were in a position to go back to school without wearing masks and giving parents a choice."
"But now with COVID soaring, and the Delta variant, a lot has changed," she said.
Parents who attended Wednesday's school board meeting voiced opposition to the mask mandates, arguing that face coverings make it hard for their kids to breathe, to learn, and to socialize with their peers.
Some of the parents voiced anger at the CDC, accusing the agency of "flip flopping" its position on masks, school board member Debbi Hixon said.
Just two months ago, the CDC issued guidance that fully vaccinated people could return to life as normal, without social distancing or mask-wearing because they were immunized. Now, because of concerns that some vaccinated people can still become infected with and transmit the Delta variant, the CDC has changed its position.
"They weren't flip flopping. They're using data and facts to make the best decisions for the time," Hixon argued. "And I think that we have to do the same thing."
Raymond Adderly, the senior class president at Fort Lauderdale High School and the student adviser to the school board, voiced support for the mask mandate.
"Although masks are super inconvenient, I'd rather see students have an inconvenience with breathing, wearing a mask — than having an inconvenience breathing on a ventilator," Adderly said, noting that a 15-year-old student at J.P. Tarvella High School was recently hospitalized with a severe case of COVID-19.
But mask mandates face opposition from the governor. DeSantis, who has received acclaim from conservatives for refusing to enact severe coronavirus restrictions, has vowed to call together a special session of the state legislature to pass a bill that would prohibit Florida school districts from imposing mask mandates. The governor believes forced masking is unnecessarily coercive.
A spokeswoman for DeSantis' office told WLRN his position on mask mandates has not changed after Broward County's decision.
"At the end of the day, the Governor trusts parents to weigh the risks and benefits and make the best choices for their own kids," DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw said.
David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Florida authorities discover election fraud scheme to register dozens of dead Democrats as voters
Florida officials reportedly discovered a scheme to register dozens of dead people as Democratic voters in Broward County.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that an unidentified person based in Columbia, South Carolina, submitted at least 54 new voter applications in July, many for voters from the Northeast that were elderly or recently deceased. The voter applications were written with the same neat handwriting and arrived at the Broward elections office several in each of 19 envelopes.
Broward elections officials flagged the applications as suspicious and reported them to the Broward State Attorney's Office. Law enforcement reportedly began an investigation and in August launched a sting operation to catch the fraudster.
A spokesman for the state attorney's office declined to give the Sun-Sentinel a comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.
The scheme came to light when the Sun-Sentinel inquired with election officials about mysterious voter ID cards that were sent to homes in a neighborhood in Davie. The paper was tipped off about the suspicious voter ID cards after one of the residents who received them alerted Richard DeNapoli, the Republican state committeeman from Broward, who then took the story to the media.
Broward Elections Supervisor Pete Antonacci confirmed to the Sun-Sentinel that the voter ID cards were part of a larger attempt at criminal election fraud.
"This is an organized effort by someone who knew a little bit about Florida law but not a lot, and had a scheme to either undermine the Florida registration system with fake voters, or intended to vote 50 times," Antonacci said.
According to the Sun-Sentinel, at least three of the fraudulent voter registration applications went undetected and were added to the Broward voter rolls in July.
One of the voter ID cards received by Davie residents was for a 104-year-old woman who died in Naples in June. Her son told the Sun-Sentinel that he'd notified officials to remove her from the voter rolls in July. She had no connection to Broward County.
Another was for a 77-year-old woman from Newton, Connecticut, who died on June 24 and was registered to vote in Broward one month later. The third was for a 90-year-old man, but the Sun-Sentinel could not confirm if he was also deceased.
Antonacci said that one of the "weaknesses" of the voter registration system that makes it susceptible to fraud is the time lag between when a voter dies and when election officials are notified of the death.
"The system is based on the honor system, and the honor system is supposedly bolstered by the fact that if you lie on one of these applications, it's a crime," he explained. "With determination, you can muscle your way in."
Election officials are adamant that none of the fraudulent voter registrations will cast ballots in the presidential election.
Antonacci explained that because these voter registration applications were submitted by mail, under Florida law the fraudsters would have to show identification before casting a ballot either in person or by mail.
"It would have been another layer of fraudulent activity in order for them to vote," Broward elections spokesman Steven Vancore said. "They did not vote."
Florida police say 2 men fished mail out of a drop box, stole ballots
Police say two Florida men stole mail, including two mail-in ballots, from a dropbox at a post office in Broward County.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that on Tuesday a patrolling police officer spotted the men lingering near a mailbox in Lighthouse Point, north of Fort Lauderdale, long enough to draw the officer's suspicions. The two suspects, Junior Alexander Cabral, 28, and Vladimir Cabral Cuevas, 20, were in a white Honda CRV next to the mailbox when approached by the officer.
During questioning, the policeman noticed a bag of mail wedged between the front seat and center console of the vehicle. He also observed a device used to extract mail from the drop box and two ballots that were separated from the rest of the mail.
Cabral and Cuevas were arrested and charged with stealing ballots, fraud, and petty theft, the Associated Press reports.
When the men appeared in court Thursday morning, presiding Judge Corey Amanda Cawthorn expressed concerns over the nature of the charges so close to Election Day.
"I'm not going to speculate as to the intentions behind the allegations, what mail was intended to be recovered or not," she said. "But, I do have to take notice of the fact we have a very big election coming up next week and the timing seems to be aggravating in Mr. Cabral's case."
A defense attorney representing Cuevas claimed that incident was a misunderstanding.
"My client was charged incorrectly by overzealous law enforcement looking to fill an empty narrative that would make a politically expedient mountain out of a molehill given the proximity to the general election," he told the Sun-Sentinel in a statement issued Thursday.
Broward assistant state attorney Katherine David requested a $10,000 bond for the ballot theft charge, noting that Cabral and Cuevas had no prior convictions.
Lighthouse Point police Commander Jack Vaccaro said the ballots will not be held as evidence and will be counted in the election.
"We are making arrangements to return these two ballots to their owners so they can deliver them to be counted," he said.
In September, the Federal Bureau of Investigations warned voters to be on the lookout for election crimes as the Nov. 3 election approaches. Earlier this week, the FBI began an investigation after a ballot drop box holding more than 120 ballots was set on fire in Boston.
"Every year, Americans pick their leaders and make their voices heard through elections," assistant director for the Criminal Investigative Division Calvin Shivers said in September. "Those elections must remain free and fair to ensure voters' voices are truly heard. As Americans get ready to vote, the FBI is asking each citizen to remain vigilant and report any suspected criminal scheme targeting voters to the FBI immediately."
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