Soros-Funded Groups Defended Broward’s Brenda Snipes in Lawsuit Alleging Inaccurate Voter Rosters
Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes was recently assisted by two organizations financed by billionaire activist George Soros in response to a lawsuit from a conservative group accusing her of maintaining inaccurate voter rolls. Snipes is currently at the center of controversy in the Florida recount drama, with multiple Republicans calling for her removal due to past legal problems. “There is no question that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians’ confidence in our electoral process,” former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tweeted on Monday. “Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts.”
Last March, a judge ruled that Snipes had implemented a “reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters by reason of death or change of address.” The ruling came in response to a 2017 case in which the American Civil Rights Union used data it had collected about population, age and citizenship to claim that Snipes was failing to take steps to maintain accurate voter rosters.
In the case, Snipe testified that ineligible voters do indeed “slip through,” the Sun-Sentinel reported: The ACRU case focused on voter lists that included dead people, 130-year-olds, felons, duplicate registrations, invalid commercial addresses and that had “improbably high” voter registration rates. Snipes testified that some people who have been registered “are not eligible to vote and they slip through.” “This is a huge job that has so many pieces,” especially when dealing with a roll of 1.1 million voters that is constantly changing, Snipes said. “Sure, you’re going to have mistakes.”
During the trial, former Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler testified about ways Snipes could be doing more. She could use cumulative Social Security death information to determine if any voters have died out of state. She could access the state’s Driver and Vehicle Information Database, called DAVID, to more quickly identify voters whose addresses have changed. She could review jury forms that indicate when individuals are excused from service because they no longer live in the county or are non-citizens.
Notably, the intervener in the case on Snipes’ behalf was the SEIU union’s United Healthcare Workers East, which was represented on the matter by lawyers from Demos and Project Vote, both of which are funded by Soros. An intervener allows a non-party to join an ongoing lawsuit.
Stuart Naifeh, senior counsel at Demos, was the lead attorney in the case. Also representing the intervener on behalf of the litigation against Snipes were attorneys Catherine M. Flanagan and Michelle Kanter Cohen from Project Vote. Demos says its mission is to ensure “an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy.” Soros’s Open Society Foundations is a prominent donor to Demos. Demos has pushed for what it calls “fair redistricting” and an end to “prison gerrymandering” in the 2020 Census; in other words, counting incarcerated people in the census. At issue is whether to count incarcerated people as “residents” of prison locations. A 2014 study examining voter trends of prisoners in three states found that in each state — New York, New Mexico and North Carolina — the majority of convicts voted for Democrats.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/11/13/soros-funded-groups-defended-browards-brenda-snipes-in-lawsuit-alleging-inaccurate-voter-rosters/