Federal judge rules to protect provisional ballots, Abrams' campaign cheers 'good news'

A federal judge on Monday ordered Georgia take steps to protect provisional ballots and to wait until Friday to certify the results of the midterm elections that include an unsettled race for governor.
Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams campaign manager, announced Judge Amy Totenberg's decision late Monday. WSBTV.com reported that the judge’s 56-page ruling could affect thousands of provisional ballots. Groh-Wargo called the ruling "good news."
Brian Kemp, her Republican challenger, issued a statement a day earlier calling for Abrams to concede. Kemp has declared victory and said it is "mathematically impossible" for her campaign to force a runoff.
Abrams' campaign did not immediately respond to a phone call from Fox News late Monday night.
Abrams, 44, a Democrat, has maintained that she will not concede until every vote has been counted, and pointed to the 5,000 votes tallied over the weekend that favored her.
Totenberg, who was appointed by President Obama, ruled in connection to Common Cause's lawsuit filed on Nov. 5. Totenberg's order doesn't change the Tuesday deadline for counties to certify their results.
Common Cause, a nonpartisan group, claimed in the suit that Kemp, while secretary of state, failed to maintain "the security of voter information despite known vulnerabilities" leading up to the midterm. The suit blasted the state's "provisional ballot scheme," that could disenfranchise a registered voter at the ballot box.
The suit pointed out cases where voters were turned around after computer glitches and cases where voters were not offered provisional ballots. One man voted for decades and was “disturbed” to learn his registration history was erased.
The court ruled that the secretary of state’s office must establish a hotline and publicize it on its website for voters to see if their provisional ballots were counted. Totenberg also ruled that Georgia must not certify the election results before Friday at 5 p.m., which falls before the Nov. 20 deadline set by state law.
"I am fighting to make sure our democracy works for and represents everyone who has ever put their faith in it. I am fighting for every Georgian who cast a ballot with the promise that their vote would count," Abrams said in a statement explaining her refusal to end her bid to become the first black woman elected governor in American history.
A total of 21,190 provisional ballots were cast in the state during the midterm, 12,151 were cast in 2014. Four Democratic-leaning counties with the largest number of provisional ballots -- Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett – “had not yet reported their numbers to the secretary as of November 11,” the suit said.
The lawsuit also asked that provisional ballots cast by a voter registered in another county be counted as if the voter had shown up at the wrong precinct. The lawsuit says that of the 1,556 provisional ballots Fulton County reported having rejected by Nov. 9, nearly 1,000 were disqualified because they were cast by voters whose registration records showed them registered in another county.
Edgardo Cortes, who currently works as an election security adviser at New York University, said these uncounted provisional ballots could sway the election and, despite Kemp’s claims, his unofficial vote total is so close to 50 percent, a runoff is possible.
Kemp was up 50.2 percent to Abrams' 48.7 percent early Tuesday. More than 3.9 million votes were cast in the election, and Abrams would need to acquire more than 20,000 additional votes to force a runoff.
Abrams' campaign filed a lawsuit Sunday asking a federal court to push the deadline for counties to certify their results to Wednesday, while also requiring that elections authorities count certain provisional and absentee ballots that have been or would be rejected for "arbitrary reasons."
“This ruling is a victory for the voters of Georgia because we are all stronger when every eligible voter is allowed to participate in our elections,” Sara Henderson, executive director for Common Cause Georgia, which filed the lawsuit, told AJC.com.

As media debate boycott, Trump still dominates the news

The press just can't quit Donald Trump.
No matter what he does — or doesn't do — he's the story. The biggest story. Often the only story.
And that story, the continuous story, inevitably involves we the media. The president excels at dragging the news business into the center of every controversy, and its members all too often fall into the trap.
Even the recent chatter about whether media outlets should boycott White House press briefings puts them in a potential confrontation with Trump, which is just the way he likes it.
The president was in Paris over the weekend, for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, and this Washington Post story yesterday encapsulates the addictive nature of the coverage.
The lead notes that "on a trip to Europe, the president hardly said a word — and he still managed to outrage at almost every turn."
But is that alleged outrage fanned by the media? And if Trump generates outrage whether he speaks or not, isn't that a telling statement?
Other than one critical tweet about Emmanuel Macron (based on an inaccurate newspaper story, the Post notes), "Trump didn't throw any sharp elbows at his peers here. It was still all about him."
Translation: The media still made it all about him.
The newspaper's take is that "it was because of the images. He looked uncomfortable and listless in a bilateral meeting with Macron, whose sinewy energy stood in stark contrast to Trump's downbeat expression as the French leader patted him on the thigh."
We can't have that!
Trump also skipped a scheduled tour of a military cemetery for Americans, blaming the rain. And by the way, that was a legitimate issue to cover, as it felt like a snub by a president who had gone to France in part to honor the sacrifices made by our soldiers.
At an event at the Arc de Triomphe, Stone sat "stone-faced as Macron railed against the rise of nationalism — a rebuke of Trump's professed worldview. The overall takeaway to many was a president turning away from the world, a man occupying the office of the leader of the free world who appeared withdrawn and unenthusiastic on the global stage."
And the first quote was a tweet by former Obama aide David Axelrod, who said, "America First feels like America Alone."
The president made huge news on previous foreign trips by getting into confrontations with other western leaders. But on a trip where he largely avoided public conflict, for whatever reason, Trump still drew negative coverage.
(He offered a different take on Twitter: "Just returned from France where much was accomplished in my meetings with World Leaders. Never easy bringing up the fact that the U.S. must be treated fairly, which it hasn't, on both Military and Trade.")
Meanwhile, New York Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg weighed in yesterday on the fallout from the Jim Acosta controversy.
The White House suspended Acosta's credentials after a dustup in which he refused to stop asking Trump questions or give up the microphone. To his credit, Rutenberg pointed out that Acosta "is a somewhat polarizing figure, viewed by some of his press corps colleagues as a showboat."
After noting that CNN President Jeff Zucker told his producers not to play up the Acosta punishment, the column said that "CNN would not be led by the nose into giving significant airtime to another Trump attack on the news media ...
"Reporters could stage a group protest. But that would make them look like they're at war with the president, just as he always says they are. Or they could do nothing and effectively 'submit to his authority to determine who gets to hold him accountable,'" as GOP strategist and fierce Trump critic Steve Schmidt put it.
It's a no-win situation. And here's why a boycott wouldn't work:
— Much of the country would turn on the press for not doing its job. Refusing to show up at briefings is a very tough sell.
— Trump would pound away at the media, saying they have moved into the opposition camp.
— Journalists would be seen as hopelessly self-absorbed if they surrendered the chance to question the White House press secretary on the public's behalf.
— And most important of all, it would never happen. There's no way all the disparate media outlets, with their varying interests, would agree to a joint boycott, and the show would go on.
This is actually somewhat symbolic since Sarah Huckabee Sanders is now briefing only rarely as her boss takes more and more questions from reporters.
But it highlights once again that most media debates these days are about Donald Trump — and the media.

Trump stares at King of Morocco who appeared to be sleeping during WWI speech

President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Morocco's King Mohammed VI, his son Crown Prince Moulay and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, attend a commemoration ceremony for Armistice Day at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. (AP)

Donald Trump stared down the King of Morocco who appeared to be taking a nap during Emmanuel Macro's moving World War One ceremony speech.
King Mohammed VI of Morocco was seen with his eyes closed as Macron honored the soldiers who died during WWI in a video clip posted to Reddit yesterday.
The U.S. President, who was seated two spaces away from the royal, looked unimpressed as he looked past his wife Melania.
Yesterday’s ceremony marked 100 years since the Armistice happened at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Trump was seated between Melania and Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel as Macron also spoke about the dangers of nationalism.
Macron said the "ancient demons" that caused World War I and millions of deaths are growing stronger.
He said: "Patriotism is the opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is treason, if we think our interest may only come first and we don't care for others, it is treason of our values. A betrayal of all moral values, we must remember this.
"It is those values and virtues that motivated those who sacrificed all to defend democracy... It is those values and those virtues that gave them strength because it guided their heart.
"The lessons of the Great War cannot be of vengeance nor forgetting the past. We must think of the future and preserve that which is essential."

Republican Martha McSally concedes Arizona Senate race to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema

Republican U.S. Rep. Martha McSally conceded Arizona's U.S. Senate race to Democratic Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema on Monday after the latest vote count showed McSally trailing by more than 38,000 votes out of more than 2.2 million ballots cast.
"Congrats to @kyrstensinema. I wish her success," McSally tweeted from her official campaign account. "I’m grateful to all those who supported me in this journey. I’m inspired by Arizonans’ spirit and our state’s best days are ahead of us."
"As long as I’ve served Arizona, I’ve worked to help others see our common humanity & find common ground," Sinema tweeted soon after McSally conceded. "That’s the same approach I’ll take to representing our great state in the Senate, where I’ll be an independent voice for all Arizonans.
"Thank you, Arizona. Let's get to work."
Sinema's victory means that Democrats have flipped the seat previously held by retiring Republican Sen. Jeff Flake. Democrats now have 47 Senate seats, while Republicans have 51. The final makeup of the Senate will be determined following a recount in Florida and a Nov. 27 runoff election in Mississippi.
Flake tweeted congratulations to Sinema "on a race well run, and won," adding "You'll be great."
Sinema, a three-term congresswoman, is Arizona's first Democratic U.S. senator since 1994. McSally, a former Air Force pilot who embraced President Donald Trump after opposing him during the 2016 elections, had claimed that Sinema's anti-war protests 15 years ago disqualified her and said one protest amounted to "treason."
But during her six years in Congress, Sinema built one of most centrist records in the Democratic caucus, and she voted for bills backed by Trump more than 60 percent of the time. She backed legislation increasing penalties against people in the country illegally who commit crimes.
In remarks to supporters, Sinema paid tribute to the late Republican Sen. John McCain, who died this past August.
Sinema said the former prisoner of war and GOP presidential nominee was "irreplaceable" and "taught us to assume the best in others, to seek compromise instead of sewing division, & to always put country ahead of party.”
"As your Senator, that’s exactly what I'll do," Sinema went on. "Not by calling names or playing political games, but by showing up and doing the work to keep Arizona moving forward."
McSally's attacks on Sinema reached back more than 15 years to when Sinema was a Green Party spokeswoman and liberal activist.
McSally backed Trump's tax cut, border security and the repeal of ObamaCare as she survived a three-way GOP primary in August, defeating two conservative challengers who claimed her support for Trump was fake. McSally also campaigned on her military record and support for the armed forces.
Sinema attacked McSally's leadership of last year's failed ObamaCare repeal effort as a sign that she would not protect Arizona residents with pre-existing medical conditions. McSally argued that she would protect patients, despite her vote on the bill that would have removed many of those protections.
The Arizona contest drew more than $90 million in spending, including more than $58 million by outside groups, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Attack ads by both sides clogged the airwaves for months.
Sinema, 42, has a law degree, worked as a social worker and was a political activist in her 20s, running as an independent Green Party candidate for the Arizona House. She then became a Democrat and served several terms in the state Legislature. Sinema started as an overt liberal but developed a reputation for compromise among her Republican peers, laying the groundwork to tack to the center. She was elected to represent Arizona's newly-created 9th Congressional District in 2012.
McSally, 52, was the first female Air Force pilot to fly in combat, flying A-10 attack jets. She also was the first woman to command a fighter squadron, again in A-10s.
McSally lost her first race in Arizona's 2nd congressional district in 2012 when she was narrowly defeated by Democratic Rep. Ron Barber, who replaced Rep. Gabby Giffords after she was wounded in a 2011 assassination attempt. But McSally came back to win the 2014 election, beating Barber by a narrow margin and was re-elected in 2016.
Flake was an outspoken critic of Trump and announced in 2017 that he would not seek re-election, acknowledging he could not win a GOP primary in the current political climate. His support of the president's initiatives, however, was mixed. He strongly backed last year's tax cut bill but criticized Trump's positions on free trade.

Democrat Russian Probe Cartoons

Dems to probe Trump's treatment of CNN, Amazon, Washington Post in triple-threaded abuse-of-power inquiries

This is why you don't vote for Democrats. They cheat, lie, steal, and sue, sue, sue.

The incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee this week said that when the new Congress is seated in January, Democrats plan to scrutinize whether President Trump abused his authority by taking adverse action against retail giant Amazon and two of his bitter left-leaning media rivals: CNN and The Washington Post.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in an interview with "Axios on HBO" that he and his colleagues will employ committee subpoena powers -- which are backed by the legal threat of contempt of Congress -- to conduct the triple-threaded inquiry into Trump's possible use of the "instruments of state power to punish the press."
Specifically, Schiff charged that Trump "was secretly meeting with the postmaster [general] in an effort to browbeat" her into "raising postal rates on Amazon," whose founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, separately owns The Washington Post.
"This appears to be an effort by the president to use the instruments of state power to punish Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post," Schiff said in the interview.
The president signed an executive order earlier this year mandating a review of what he called the "unsustainable financial path" of the United States Postal Service (USPS). And he has reportedly met with Postmaster General Megan Brennan several times to push for hikes to the shipping rates paid by companies like Amazon, although there are no indications he did so to seek political payback.
Trump has long derided the political coverage at the Post, which is fiercely and relentlessly criticial of the White House, as a lobbying tool for Bezos. Most recently, the White House has contradicted the Post's unequivocal reporting that it had shared a "doctored" video of CNN reporter Jim Acosta making contact with a White House intern during a press conference last week, as a Buzzfeed analysis suggested the changes in the video could have resulted inadvertently from the conversion of the footage to the lower-fidelity .gif format commonly used on Twitter.
But Trump has also feuded specifically with Amazon throughout the year, saying it is taking advantage of taxpayer-subsidized shipping rates.
In March, he argued in a series of tweets that the online retailer’s “scam” shipping deal with the USPS -- which affords Amazon generous discounts  -- is costing the agency “billions of dollars.”

Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, speaks at The Economic Club of Washington's Milestone Celebration in Washington. (Associated Press)

While the USPS has lost money for 11 years, Trump's critics have claimed that package delivery -- which has been a relative bright spot for the service as it competes in that space with UPS and FedEx -- is not the main reason. Boosted by e-commerce, the Postal Service has experienced double-digit increases in revenue from delivering packages despite offering discounts to retailers, even as the agency is hit with significantly increased mandatory pension and health care costs, as well as precipitous declines in first-class letters and marketing mail.
But it could be that the USPS is undercharging Amazon for its services. Although federal law ostensibly requires that the USPS' deals with Amazon be at least a break-even proposition for the government, the agency's profits from parcel deliveries are difficult to accurately calculate, owing to its complicated hybrid-monopoly structure and accounting documents that raise questions as to its actual costs.
Schiff also raised the possibility that the Trump administration's opposition to AT&T's $85 billion takeover of Time Warner on antitrust grounds may have been motivated by the president's animus toward CNN, whose parent company is Time Warner. Trump frequently claims that CNN speads "fake news" and that when it does so, it is acting as the "enemy of the people."
"We don't know, for example, whether the effort to hold up the merger of the parent of CNN was a concern over antitrust, or whether this was an effort merely to punish CNN," Schiff said, without offering evidence.
WHAT ARE THE MAJOR LEGISLATIVE BATTLEGROUNDS BETWEEN DEMS, GOP IN 2019?
"It is very squarely within our responsibility to find out," Schiff said. Along with incoming House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and other top Democrats, Schiff will have a mandate to serve a slew of subpoenas on the Trump administration.
But former GOP Judiciary Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who is now a Fox News contributor, told Politico in October that Cummings and Schiff shouldn't get their hopes up.
“If [North Carolina Rep.] Mark Meadows and [Ohio Rep.] Jim Jordan can’t get documents out of the White House, I don’t know why Elijah Cummings and the Democrats think they’ll do any better,” Chaffetz said.
Still, Democrats had signaled even before last week's midterm elections that they would aggressively investigate the Trump administration if they took power in Congress. Bogging down the White House with burdensome document requests and subpoenas could indeed backfire, political analysts tell Fox News, but there is little doubt that the strategy -- made more viable by heightened partisanship and loosened congressional norms -- would impair Republicans' messaging and even policy goals for the next two years.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks to a crowd of volunteers and supporters of the Democratic party at an election night returns event at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

"Well, we are responsible," House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who is campaigning to reclaim her role as House speaker, said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "We are not scattershot. We are not doing any investigation for a political purpose, but to seek the truth. So I think a word that you could describe about how Democrats will go forward in this regard is we will be very strategic."
But Pelosi has previously suggested that she would, indeed, use the threat of subpoenea for political gain.
MAXINE WATERS, SCHIFF TO TAKE HIGH-PROFILE COMMITTEE POSTS IN NEW HOUSE
“Subpoena power is interesting, to use it or not to use it,” Pelosi said at a conference in October, referring to the authority of House committees to summon individuals and organizations to testify or provide documents under penalty of perjury. “It is a great arrow to have in your quiver in terms of negotiating on other subjects." She added that she would use the power "strategically." (Trump has flatly called Pelosi's plan "illegal.")
Pelosi's approach would mark the continuation of a trend. Research conducted by Cornell University political science professor Douglas Kriner, who co-wrote the 2016 book "Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power," underscores the increasingly political nature of House investigations.
"We examined every congressional investigation from 1898 to 2014 – more than 11,900 days of investigative hearings," Kriner told Fox News. "What we found is that divided government is a major driver of investigations in the House. This is particularly true in periods of intense partisan polarization. For example, from 1981-2014, the House averaged holding 67 days of investigative hearings per year in divided government, versus only 18 per year in unified government."
Kriner added that modern congressional probes seem geared toward "maximiz[ing] the political damage on the White House," rather than producing more substantive results. "Investigations are less likely to trigger new legislation than in previous, less polarized eras," Kriner told Fox News.
On Election Day, Pelosi vowed to “restor[e] the Constitution’s checks and balances to the Trump administration" by enhancing transparency and accountability. But Trump last week signaled he had no patience for that approach, which he characterized as an expensive folly.
"If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!" Trump tweeted.

Dem-leaning Palm Beach County says it likely won't make recount deadline in Florida governor, Senate races

The supervisor of elections in Florida's heavily Democratic Palm Beach County said Sunday that she did not believe her department would meet a Thursday deadline to complete recounts in the Sunshine State's historically tight gubernatorial and Senate races, threatening to further confuse an increasingly chaotic and politically fraught process.
The supervisor, Susan Bucher, told reporters that she did not expect to meet the deadline due to aging equipment. Florida Department of State spokeswoman Sarah Revell told Fox News that under state law, if a county does not submit their results by the deadline, then the results on file at the time take their place. Revell added that Florida's Secretary of State has no authority to grant extensions.
"Supervisors of Elections are independent officials and they are responsible for deciding when to upgrade or modernize their equipment," Revell added.
The recount in most other major population centers, including Miami-Dade and Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in the Tampa Bay area, were taking place without incident on Sunday. Smaller counties are expected to begin their reviews Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.
Bucher spoke hours after the campaign of Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott -- which secured an early legal victory against Democratic-leaning Broward County officials over the weekend -- went back to court with a fresh salvo of emergency complaints against both Broward and Palm Beach counties. One complaint requests that state sheriff's officers "impound and secure all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots when they are not in use until the conclusion of the recount."
In a separate lawsuit, Scott's team is asking a judge to throw out votes tallied by the Broward County Canvassing Board after Saturday's noon deadline, in apparent violation of state law, which requires that "[t]he canvassing board shall submit ... unofficial returns to the Department of State for each federal, statewide, state, or multicounty office or ballot measure no later than ... noon on the fourth day after any general or other election."
“The Broward and Palm Beach County Supervisors of Elections has already demonstrated a blatant disregard for Florida’s elections laws, making it more important than ever that we continue to do everything possible to prevent fraud and ensure this recount is operated responsibly," Chris Hartline, a Scott spokesman, said in a statement.
Lawyer Marc Elias, who is representing the campaign of Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, fired back on Twitter.
"Lets [sic] be clear about what we are witnessing in Florida," Elias wrote. "The sitting Governor is seeking to throw out lawful votes and seize the voting equipment in order to win an election."
"Somebody needs to cut down on the Red Bull," a Scott spokesperson wrote on Twitter, in response to a statement by Florida Democrats Executive Director Juan Penalosa that compared Scott to a Latin American dictator. "We requested that ballots and voting machines be protected when not in use. The only reason not to protect the integrity of the ballots and the voting machines is if you are actively promoting or hoping for fraud."
But Democrats continued to bash the Republican's effort. "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. We will not allow him to undermine the democratic process and will use every legal tool available to protect the rights of Florida voters."
Unofficial results show that Republican former Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points in the election for governor. In the Senate race, Scott's lead over Nelson is 0.14 percentage points. State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. Once completed, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 percentage points or below, a hand recount will be ordered.
The litigation threw yet another wrench in an increasingly chaotic process reminiscent of the 2000 presidential election recount fiasco. In Broward County, the scheduled start of the recount was delayed Sunday because of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. The Republican Party accused Broward's supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, of continuing to compromise the process with "incompetence and gross mismanagement" following the delay, which was resolved within two hours.

Election workers place ballots into electronic counting machines, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill, Fla. The Florida recount began Sunday morning in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Broward County election planning director Joe D'Alessandro told Fox News that machines in Broward are currently resorting some 3.5 million pages of ballots, and officials said that process could take more than 30 hours alone before any actual counting begins.
Broward County, the state's second-most populous, is emerging as the epicenter of controversy in the recount. Broward officials said they mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected, mostly because the signature on the return envelope did not match the one on file.

Brenda Snipes, Broward County supervisor of elections, speaks with officials before a canvassing board meeting Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper)

It is a problem that appears impossible to fix because the ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots. Snipes, who has long been accused of mismanaging county elections and has been sanctioned by a judge for destroying ballots in a 2016 congressional race, said it would be unfair to throw out all the ballots.
"#BrowardElections office admits the vote count they submitted to state includes 22 illegal votes," Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio wrote on Twitter Sunday. "We know about these 22 because they got caught breaking law in reviewing 202 ballots. How can anyone trust more illegal votes aren’t in their final count?"

Election workers place ballots into electronic counting machines, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill, Fla. The Florida recount began Sunday morning in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Undervoting -- a phenomenon in which voters don't cast votes in all the races on the ballot -- has become a prominent issue in the race. Rubio pointed out that Broward County is showing that approximately 25,000 fewer votes were cast in the Senate race than the gubernatorial contest -- a significant undervote that could be explained by Snipes' ballot design, which placed the Senate contest directly below the ballot's instructions, out of line with other races.
In 2006, the last time Nelson was on the ballot alongside a gubernatorial race, only 4,100 fewer people in Broward voted in the Senate race than in the election for governor. (However, at the statewide level this year, 34,051 fewer people voted in the Senate race than the gubernatorial race, a lower figure than the 35,736 undervote in 2006 -- even though 3 million more votes were cast in 2018 compared to 2006.)
"How ironic would it be if those who are now bashing our criticism of Snipes in the end wind up arguing that a ballot design error made by her is the reason the Democrats lost?" Rubio said Sunday.
Other Republicans suggested that Democrats shouldn't get their hopes up as the recounts get underway.

A crowd protests outside the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. A possible recount looms in a tight Florida governor, Senate and agriculture commission race. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper)

"Scott trails DeSantis by 10,754 votes in Broward, and Nelson trails Gillum by 10,343," a Scott campaign source told Fox News. "The idea that the undervotes in Broward County is an opportunity for Nelson to significantly close the gap is not and has never been based on anything but fantasy."
The recount in most other major population centers, including Miami-Dade and Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in the Tampa Bay area, was ongoing without incident on Sunday. Smaller counties are expected to begin their reviews Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.
Republicans have repeatedly cried foul throughout the process, both in court and outside Florida election offices. On Saturday, GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz compared Broward County to a "banana republic" and posted video apparently showing him being denied access to election facilities on "safety" grounds.
Protesters chanted, "Lock her up" outside the building earlier in the day, referring to Snipes.
Rubio and other Florida officials have posted numerous videos and images on social media apparently showing boxes of ballots being left behind in public spaces or improperly loaded onto private trucks.
At an emergency court hearing on Friday, state Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips ruled there has “been a violation of the Florida Constitution,” as well as the state’s public records act, by Broward officials who had not turned over requested records about the number of votes to be counted. But, Gaetz said, Florida officials were still blocking Republicans from monitoring how they were handling boxes of ballots.
"We have very specific laws in the state to try to prevent fraud," Scott, the incumbent Florida governor, told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. "We had to go to court to force the supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County and Broward County to comply with the law, which is there to prevent fraud."
Scott added: "Sen. Nelson is clearly trying to commit fraud to win this election, that’s all this is." Asked to elaborate on his accusation, he replied, "Well, it's his team."

"Sen. Nelson is clearly trying to commit fraud to win this election."
— GOP Senate candidate Rick Scott

"His lawyers said that a noncitizen should vote, that’s one," Scott continued. "Two, he’s gone to trial and said that fraudulent ballots should be counted, ballots have already been thrown out because they were not done properly. He said those should be counted."
JUDGE SIDES WITH RICK SCOTT, REPUBLICANS, ORDERS FLORIDA ELECTION OFFICIALS TO COMPLY WITH LAW
Lawyers for Nelson and Gillum on Friday had objected to the rejection of a provisional ballot cast by a noncitizen, according to a transcript obtained by Fox News.
The incident occurred during a canvassing meeting in Palm Beach County, where provisional ballots were being examined. According to the draft transcript of the meeting, taken by a court reporter hired by the Florida Republican Party, a provisional ballot was ordered excluded from the count, as it came from a non-U.S. citizen.
The Nelson campaign distanced itself from the objections, which it said that it had not authorized.
The recount reviews are an unprecedented step in Florida, a state that's notorious for election results decided by the thinnest of margins. State officials said they weren't aware of any other time either a race for governor or U.S. Senate in Florida required a recount, let alone both in the same election.

Broward County Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes, gives an update on the progress of ballots that are being counted from the midterm election Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Snipes, the Broward County election supervisor who has held her office since 2003, is no stranger to controversy. Earlier this year, Scott's administration said it was monitoring her office after a judge ruled in May the county broke federal law by destroying ballots in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's 2016 Democratic primary race against Tim Canova, Politico reported.
Snipes claimed the issue had been "blown out of proportion."
In August, a judge sided with the Florida GOP in its challenge of how the county handled absentee ballots. Republicans claimed Snipes' office was opening ballots in private, preventing people from challenging if they were properly cast, according to Politico.
And then in 2016, Broward County violated the law when it posted early voting results online before polls even closed, the Miami Herald reported.

A crowd protests outside the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. Florida is once again at the center of election controversy, but this year there are no hanging chads or butterfly ballots like in 2000. And no angry mobs in suits, at least not yet. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper)

TRUMP 'WATCHING CLOSELY' WHAT HAPPENS IN FLORIDA, SAYS DEMS TRYING TO STEAL ELECTIONS
As the recount unfolded, Republicans urged their Democratic opponents to give up and allow the state to move on.
Both the state elections division, which Scott runs, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have said they have found no evidence of voter fraud. Gillum and Nelson have argued each vote should be counted and the process allowed to take its course.
Florida is also conducting a recount in a third statewide race. Democrat Nikki Fried had a 0.07 percentage point lead over Republican state Rep. Matt Caldwell in the race for agriculture commissioner, one of Florida's three Cabinet seats.
From a distant glance, the recounts might dredge up memories of the 2000 presidential recount, when it took more than five weeks for Florida to declare George W. Bush the winner over Al Gore by 537 votes, thus giving Bush the presidency.
But much has changed since then. In 2000, each county had a separate voting system. Many used punch cards — voters poked out chads, leaving tiny holes in their ballots representing their candidates. Some voters, however, didn't fully punch out the presidential chad or gave it just a little push. Those hanging and dimpled chads had to be examined by the canvassing boards, a lengthy, tiresome and often subjective process that became fodder for late-night comedians.
Now the state requires that all Florida counties use ballots where voters use a pen to fill in a circle next to their candidate's name, much like a student does when taking a multiple-choice test. It also now clearly mandates how the recount will proceed.
Those ballots are now being run through scanning machines in each county for a second time under the watchful eye of representatives of both parties and the campaigns. Any ballot that cannot be read for any of the recounted races will be put aside.
If a race's statewide margin falls below 0.25 percentage points after the machine count, the state will order a manual recount in each county. At that point, only the rejected ballots for that race will be examined by counting teams to determine if the voters' intentions were obvious. For example, some voters circle the candidate's name instead of filling in the ballot correctly and some cross out their vote and then mark another candidate.
If either side objects to a counting team's decision or the team can't make one, the ballot will be forwarded to the county's canvassing board, with the three members voting on the final decision. The members are usually the county supervisor of elections, a judge and the chair of the county commissioners.

Mark Penn, Andrew Stein: Yes, Hillary Clinton will run again -- Here's how she'll easily win the nomination

Get ready for Hillary Clinton 4.0. More than 30 years in the making, this new version of Mrs. Clinton, when she runs for president in 2020, will come full circle—back to the universal-health-care-promoting progressive firebrand of 1994. True to her name, Mrs. Clinton will fight this out until the last dog dies. She won’t let a little thing like two stunning defeats stand in the way of her claim to the White House.
It’s been quite a journey. In July 1999, Mrs. Clinton began her independent political career on retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s farm in upstate New York. Her Senate platform included support for a balanced budget, the death penalty, and incremental health care reform. It was a decisive break from her early-1990s self. Hillary Clinton 2.0 was a moderate, building on the success of her communitarian “It Takes a Village” appeals and pledging to bring home the bacon for New York. She emphasized her religious background, voiced strong support for Israel, voted for the Iraq war, and took a hard line against Iran.
This was arguably the most successful version of Hillary Clinton. She captured the hearts and minds of New York’s voters and soared to an easy re-election in 2006, leaving Bill and all his controversies behind.
But Hillary 2.0 could not overcome Barack Obama, the instant press sensation. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Mrs. Clinton held fast to centrist positions that would have assured her victory in the general election. But progressive leaders and donors abandoned her for the antiwar Mr. Obama. Black voters who had been strong Clinton supporters in New York and Arkansas left her column to elect the first African-American president. History was made, but not by Mrs. Clinton. Though she won more delegates from Democratic primaries, activists in caucus states gave Mr. Obama, who had called her “likable enough,” the heartbreaking win.

Abrams’ campaign files federal lawsuit in hopes to force runoff

Stacey Abrams' campaign on Sunday filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to delay vote certifications in Georgia’s unsettled governor's race by one day and block counties from tossing some provisional and absentee ballots that may have minor mistakes on them.
Brian Kemp, her Republican challenger, issued a statement a day earlier calling for Abrams to concede. Kemp has declared victory and said it is "mathematically impossible" for her campaign to force a runoff.
Fox 5 Atlanta reported that Kemp is up by 59,000 votes. Kemp had 50.2 percent of the vote by early Monday.
Abrams, 44, has maintained that she will not concede until every vote has been counted, and pointed to the 5,000 votes tallied over the weekend that favored her. The Washington Post reported that she would need 21,700 additional votes to force a runoff.
The suit, if successful, would prevent officials from certifying county vote totals until Wednesday and could restore at least 1,095 votes that weren't counted. The campaign said thousands of more ballots could be affected.

"The bottom line is this race is not over. It is still too close to call, and we do not have confidence in the secretary of state’s office."
— Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams’ campaign manager

Kemp's campaign did not have any immediate comment on the lawsuit, according to the station. The suit was filed over alleged problems in Democratic-favoring Gwinnett and DeKalb counties in metro Atlanta.
Dara Lindenbaum, a lawyer for Abrams’ campaign, said the suit intends to stop ballots with minor mistakes -- like the voter writing the day they filled out the ballot as their date of birth -- from being rejected.
But Kemp aides previously said Abrams has no path to victory and called her refusal to concede a "disgrace to democracy."
Each of Georgia's 159 counties must certify final returns by Tuesday, and many have done so already. Abrams hopes to delay the certification until Wednesday. The state must certify a statewide result by Nov. 20.
Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams’ campaign manager, told the Post, "The bottom line is this race is not over. It is still too close to call, and we do not have confidence in the secretary of state’s office."
Abrams hopes to become the nation's first black woman elected governor, while Kemp is trying to maintain GOP dominance in a diversifying state that could be important in the presidential election in two years.
"So her margin in those uncounted votes needs to be really high," Jeffrey Lazarus, who teaches political science at Georgia State University, said Sunday in an interview conducted by email. "To put it simply, she's running out of votes."
The Associated Press has not declared a winner.
Allegations by Abrams supporters of voter suppression, long voting lines and other balloting problems are hard to ignore given Kemp's "aggressively partisan conduct as secretary of state," said Michael Kang, who teaches election law at Northwestern University's law school.
"That said, I think the Abrams campaign still faces an uphill battle in first convincing a court about the need for a recount and second, having the recount net enough votes to force a runoff. As a general matter, recounts rarely end up changing the outcomes of elections," Kang, who previously taught at Emory University in Atlanta, said in an email interview to the Associated Press.

Veterans Day Cartoons